tim_goodwin

The 50-dollar question is ...

Wed, 30 Nov 2022 23:39:58 GMT

“If it was up to you, which one of the four would you vote for?”

Greetings! Let’s start off with a big “Whew!” as the election is over. Some states are still tabulating which makes no sense to me. In South Dakota we do not have our voting machines hooked up to the internet, so it is IMPOSSIBLE to hack the voting machines. A hard copy of the ballot is kept on hand and can be audited at any time. The voting machines are just a faster automated way of tabulating the votes.

Listed are four areas we could implement the extra revenue South Dakota is realizing, basically from a booming economy. Of course, the conservative point of view is that if extra taxes are collected over and above what was budgeted, the excess tax should go back to the taxpayers. The other view is to grow government. So, here are the 4 areas where we could use the extra tax dollars.

1. Eliminate tax on groceries.

2. Eliminate video lottery.

3. Pay for Medicaid expansion.

4. Reduce home assessment values by $100 thousand.

Let’s go through each one, shall we?

1. Eliminate tax on groceries. Some call this food tax, but that would include restaurants. The estimated $100 million is counting only groceries. One question I always ask when some group approaches me about eliminating grocery tax is, “Why do you want to do this?” The answer I’ve always received was, “because of the poor people.” OK, fair enough. However, poor people don’t pay tax on groceries, and for that matter, get their groceries for free via food stamps, now called EBT cards.

2. Eliminate video lottery. Yep, the video lottery casinos on every corner. Not Deadwood. Just the casinos that have video lottery machines. The state gets 50% of the profit and the proprietor gets the remaining 50%. I just have a hard time with our state running on losses from those who can least afford it. That being those addicted to video lottery. This is dirty money (in my opinion) and could be eliminated with this extra revenue.

3. Pay for Medicaid expansion. Yep, this was a ballot measure that passed in the General Election. Initially, there are federal funds, but eventually, as early as next year, the federal government is going to pull the rug out from under the states, making each state responsible for funding Medicaid expansion.

4. Reduce home assessment values by $100 thousand. This, again, is about $100 million. I included this one in here because of the Summer Study on Property Tax. The committee came up with this solution. I personally would like to eliminate Property Tax totally with a usage tax, but that’s an article by itself in the future.

The 50-dollar question is, “If it was up to you, which one of the four would you vote for?” You can email me at TGoodwin1955@gmail.com . Just pick 1, 2, 3, or 4. If you want to explain your reasoning, that would be great, but not necessary.

To the citizens of South Dakota and to the men and women in uniform, in honor of all who served, in respectful memory of all who fell, and in great appreciation to those who serve today, Thank You, for giving me the opportunity to represent you.

Representative Tim R. Goodwin

District 30

Majority Whip

Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired

Update of Property Taxes

Thu, 06 Oct 2022 19:31:57 GMT

Greetings! How was everyone’s summer? The temps finally feel like fall, along with the colorful foliage. How beautiful are the black hills, especially in the fall! We are very fortunate to live in this part of the country!

So, what have I been up to? Well, as you are aware, I lost the Primary Election to Sen. Frye-Mueller by 47 votes. The reason I ran for the Senate is that I thought I had a better chance of getting my Property Tax Bill, eliminating all property taxes, passed. Now that she is our senator for District 30, I will support her 100%. I have already visited with her regarding prime-sponsoring a property tax elimination bill in the Senate. Rep. Ladner is the chair of our Property Tax Subcommittee, so she would be prime sponsor in the House. We have our next Summer Study meeting on Property Tax on 10 and 11 October, so I will know more then.

I would like to thank every Republican who voted in the June 7th primary, not just the tremendous support you had for me but for the voters who voted for Sen. Frye-Mueller as well. You exercised your constitutional right and I salute you for it.

Let’s talk about our rock star governor we have for a moment. Last Friday I attended a press conference held at Dakota Butcher by Menards in Rapid City. (Do you pronounce it May nards or Men ards? LOL) Anyway, Randy Gruenwald out of Clark, SD is the owner of Dakota Butcher. He also has butcher shops in Watertown (Go Arrows!), Pierre and the Rapid City location. To call it a small butcher operation is definitely an understatement as the place is huge.

At the governor’s press conference, she announced a repeal of tax on food. This would be specifically on groceries, with an estimated price tag of $100 million in lost revenue. This has come before the legislature the six years I’ve been there in some form or another. My initial question, I always asked in committee testimony, is why they want to eliminate tax on groceries.? The answer always was “because of the poor people.” My answer to that was that for those with lower income limits, (I don’t like the word POOR because most of us are or were poor at some time in our lives.) was that they receive food stamps, now issued on EBT cards which take the monies out of their account where the state deposits for them an allocation each month. Thinking a little deeper about these proposed tax cuts on groceries probably makes sense with our current inflation-ridden economy under the Biden administration.

State sales tax is 4-1/2 cents. It was 4 cents until the Partridge Amendment went through in 2016 and was supposed to be repealed with a sunset clause but the problem was the sun never set on the ½-cent because of creative bookkeeping in the Dept. of Revenue. But I digress. Yes, I think the legislature should support Gov. Noem and give all the citizens needed financial relief through stopping grocery taxes.

Does that mean municipalities would also drop their add-ons to state tax, in some cases 2%? With inflation skyrocketing, fuel doubling, and who knows what propane and natural gas will be this winter, I think the old Nike slogan “Just do it” applies here.

Representative Tim R. Goodwin

District 30

Majority Whip

Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)

tgoodwin@gmail.com (Tim Goodwin) — Wed, 17 Aug 2022 19:05:01 GMT

Just Passed by Congress!

Greetings! Isn’t anyone just a little upset about the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) just passed by Congress?? There are things to be upset about like the one-year anniversary of the disastrous pull-out from Afghanistan when we left $8 billion worth of high-tech military equipment behind. Actually, the figure is much higher than that when you figure in all the research and development costs to make all of that military equipment now in the hands of the Taliban, Iranians, Russians and Chinese!

Other reasons to be upset include our energy independence. Two short years ago we had energy independence. We were exporting oil and gas and gas prices were around $2 per gallon. Interest rates on home loans have gone from 2.25% to over 5% now. Consumer goods have all kinds of shortages. I can’t ever remember going to grocery stores and seeing empty shelves of certain items until now.

The Inflation Reduction Act has to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I know it’s been a busy summer and some of us, me included, don’t pay much attention to the news, but this you have to see! The Inflation Reduction Act is a 739-billion-dollar expenditure. Yes! Our federal government thinks it can spend its way out of debt and inflation!! Inflation, that’s another failure, when it was 2% or less 2 years ago and now is at 8.5% and rising.

Inside this monstrous boondoggle (Sen. Rounds term) is 80 billion dollars to hire 87,000 more IRS agents. This more than doubles the number of IRS agents currently on our payroll. Yes, it is ours. We pay for it out of our taxes. Digging a little further in the job announcement for these additional IRS agents, it says: Requirements include working 50 hours per week, which may include irregular hours and be on call 24/7, including holidays and weekends and “CARRY A FIREARM AND BE WILLING TO USE DEADLY FORCE, IF NECESSARY”. No, this isn’t the KGB in Russia. This is our own United States Government. Yes. Yours and mine!?

The point here, in my opinion, is to intimidate us so we “don’t criticize or else you’re getting audited.” The IRS knows our tax code is so large and cumbersome that the average wage earner can’t keep up with it, so “be quiet because no way do we want to be audited” and now, with armed agents who agree upon hiring to use deadly force if needed.

Our Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen says these additional IRS agents aren’t going after the household or business that makes less than $400,000. Really, if you take out all the households that make more than $400,000, do we need 87,000 more agents? Of course not. Don’t kid yourself. They are coming after us average wage earners.

To back this up, the nonpartisan joint committee on taxation says the additional income from all these audits (How many audits per agent per year?) is projected that 90% of this additional revenue will come from small wage earners and businesses, making 200,000 or less per year. That’s us folks. This isn’t, or shouldn’t be, a partisan issue but it is.

The IRA passed in the Senate with 50-50 votes making our Democrat Vice President pass it 51-50. In the U.S. House of Representatives 220 yes votes (all Democrats) and 207 no votes (all Republican) with 3 absent and 5 seats that are vacant. That should add up to 435 Congressional seats. Noteworthy is that 160 of these votes were done by proxy, meaning someone else voted for 160 Congresspersons who were absent. The 3 absent votes are unexplainable to me. Senators Thune and Rounds voted against the IRA, as did Congressman Johnson.

So, there you have it. Our Internal Revenue Service is going to have more agents than our United States Marine Corps has marines, and, by the way, they are going to be armed and have agreed to use deadly force if necessary. No, I am not making this up!

Representative Tim R. Goodwin

District 30

Majority Whip

Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Groundbreaking Ceremony B21 Raider

tgoodwin@gmail.com (Tim Goodwin) — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 20:13:57 GMT

Ellsworth Air Force Base

Greetings! Rep. Trish Ladner and I had the distinct pleasure of attending the groundbreaking ceremony for the new B21 Raider coming to Ellsworth Air Force Base. The actual buildings are being called “low observable restoration facilities.”

General Anthony Cotton was the keynote speaker. He is the Commander of Air Force Global Command and also Air U.S. Strategic Command stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base located in northwest Louisiana. This base is just south of Shreveport, Louisiana.

Just a quick General Officer understanding: a Brigadier General has one star, a Major General has two stars, a Lieutenant General has 3 stars and a General has 4 stars. General Cotton is a 4-star general!

An easy way to remember this is this mnemonic: Be My Little General. Be is Brigadier, My is Major, Little is Lieutenant, General is General. This is not meant to be derogatory or disrespectful in any way. It is just an easy way to equate stars with each rank of generals.

So, back to General Cotton. Any time I get a chance to listen to a general, I get excited. Regardless of the branch of service, I’ve never met or heard a general who wasn’t simply the best of the very best! They are absolutely outstanding human beings and always very impressive! General Cotton was no exception. One thing he said that hit home with me was that the United States is the only country that has bomber fleets in the free world. This deterrent, of course, is designed to keep China and Russia at bay. The B21 Bomber will replace the B1 Bomber currently in use at Ellsworth Air Force Base and the 20 B2 Stealth Bombers stationed out of Whiteman AFB in West Central Missouri, about 60 miles SW of Kansas City.

Now, being a retired soldier, I know little about Air Force aircraft. However, I do know the B in front of the B1, B2 and B21 stands for Bomber and the F in front, like the F16 that our Air Guard has at Joe Foss Field in Sioux Falls, stand for Fighter Aircraft. Not bad for an Army guy, huh?

The B21 Raider will have stealth bomber capabilities, delivering both conventional and nuclear munitions. Once fully fielded, the B21 and the 52 will be the two bombers in existence in the Air Force fleets. “The exciting part is that Ellsworth is getting a tactical fighting squadron of 20 each B21 Raiders and a training squadron with an additional 20 each B21 Raiders. The Air Force is only fielding 100 B21s initially. The training squadron mission is to train every airman who works on that airframe in their specialty. In the Army we call it MOS, Military Occupation Specialty.”

The B21 Raider is not named after the Stevens High School Raiders, but instead after the historic Doolittle Raiders who in WWII were known for their surprise attack against Japan. This forced Japan to recall combat forces for just homeland defense. Because of the Doolittle Raiders’ success, the Allied Forces morale was drastically boosted. The designation of the B21 Raiders recognizes the Doolittle Raiders as the first bombers of the 21st century. Isn’t that hoo-rah hoo-rah?

Lastly, changing subjects, please exercise your honor and duty to vote. Many men and women have fought, and some have died giving us this sacred opportunity. Polls are open now at the county courthouses through June 6th, then vote at your respective voting locations on Primary Election Day June 7th.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative and candidate for Senate

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

FLDS Compound ...

Thu, 26 May 2022 16:17:26 GMT

is for sale!

Yep, the FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints) compound, located at 11584 Farmer Road outside Custer, South Dakota (57710) is up for sale. It is actually a long way from the closest town of Pringle. Of course, everyone knows where Pringle is, right? Cell service, internet service and GPS is intermittent at best, so here are my directions: Go to Pringle and stop in at the Hitchin’ Rail (or Hitchin’ Post?) restaurant/bar and ask the local patrons how to get to the compound. If you can’t find Pringle, maybe it is best you don’t venture out. LOL. Once you are close to the compound, you will see a lookout tower. It almost looks like an air traffic control tower. This lookout tower is inside 140 acres of high fence with barbed wire on top encompassing the entire complex.

“Inside the wire” like we’d say in the Army, you will find six log structures with 77 bedrooms and 74 baths, a huge meeting hall with 15-20 offices and 10 or 12 restrooms, a huge storage shed about 15,000 square feet in size, another huge machine shed, a greenhouse, generator building to live off the grid if needed, two pump houses with multiple wells and several other miscellaneous structures. It is on 140 acres. A quarter section of land is 160 acres, so this is 20 acres shy of a quarter section. The price is $6.9 million.

How did this place go from a FLDS compound to being sold to the public? Good question. Three former members bought the property at a sheriff’s foreclosure sale last year for $750 K, (that’s $750,000). The way they were able to do this was that they won a multi-million-dollar federal lawsuit against the FLDS hierarchy for indiscretions done to them by the FLDS cult.

This auction took place while Legislative Session 2021 was in session. I told Marcia we should play hooky from Session and attend the auction. Of course, the distance of over 200 miles from Pierre would have made it at least a 2-day if not a 3-day absence so we did not attend.

The compound, built in Custer County in 2005, was one of the main reasons I ran for office in 2016. In 2019 I prime-sponsored House bill #HB-1110. This bill identified the problem of the cult not ever filing a birth certificate or death certificate of any member of the compound. Remember, this place started in 2005, so at the time of the bill, they hadn’t reported any births or deaths for 14 years.

This was a very precarious position as if you don’t have a birth certificate in our society, you don’t exist. This was not the worst thing about the cult. Some other issues were that young girls 12-15 years old were forced to marry elders aged 50 years and older. They believe in polygamy, so as many as 14 wives isn’t all that uncommon. The compound by Pringle was the headquarters with subordinate compounds in Hilldale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona. They would transport young girls to and from the three locations.

What HB-1110 did was establish a penalty for certain persons who failed to file a birth certificate or provide the notice required for filing of a death certificate. The penalty for not doing this was a Class 2 misdemeanor that could be ratchetted up to a felony if multiple infractions occurred. HB-1110 passed in the House 67-1 with 2 members absent and in the Senate 33-0 with 2 members absent. Our Governor Kristi Noem signed HB-1110 into law.

Little known to the legislature at the time was that this new law was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Less than two years after passage the compound was sold at the sheriff’s foreclosure sale.

There you have it. Being in the legislature can have a positive impact on our great state that we call South Dakota.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative and candidate for Senate

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Letter from a constituent

Thu, 19 May 2022 20:08:31 GMT

regarding property taxes

Greetings!

For discussion this week, I am, with her permission, printing the bulk of an email sent to me from a District 30 citizen:

“Dear Representative Goodwin, I read with interest your piece in the paper this week that proposes the elimination of private residence property tax via an increased sales tax (or consumption tax). My family whole-heartedly supports your proposal. If South Dakota could pull this off, it would be a revolutionary step in support of private citizen rights in this country.

One of the reasons my family moved to South Dakota was the unbelievable property taxes we were paying in PA (it was more than double the rate we pay in Custer). Constantly increasing property taxes are crushing the “little people” in states across our country (and of course the taxes always ever increase, they never decrease!) and I sometimes wonder how it is that we’ve strayed so far from our country’s founding principles. With the way property taxes are structured in America today, Americans never actually own their property, even after they pay off the mortgage. There just seems to be something profoundly unconstitutional about the fact that a state can take away someone’s home, even if they’ve paid for it and lived in it for decades, if they can’t meet the tax bill in any given year.

My only recommendation with regards to your proposal is the inclusion of an exception for food (i.e., leave the current rate of taxation for food from grocery stores the same). [Some people] will argue that your proposal will hurt the poor the most, but if food is exempt from the increased tax rate, you will take most of the wind out of the [that] argument.

Eliminating property tax and shifting to a consumption tax puts responsibility and choice in the individual’s hands – that is, if I don’t want to pay a lot in taxes, I can choose not to buy that yacht!

And I like the idea that those millions of tourists who visit our great state will pay into the system every year.

Deborah Hanagan, PhD

Colonel, US Army, retired

Constituent in Custer”

Thank you to the quoted writer for your comments and for allowing me to use them publicly!

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative and candidate for Senate

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Formula to “Eliminate Property Taxes”

tgoodwin@gmail.com (Tim Goodwin) — Thu, 12 May 2022 20:43:12 GMT

Consider a Consumption Tax

Formula to “Eliminate Property Taxes”

Greetings! As promised, here is a proposal to eliminate all residential property taxes statewide. Before showing this proposal, I’d like to preface this by saying I feel our current property tax system is antiquated and quite frankly broken. It picks winners and losers and is taxing homeowners out of their homes, not to mention the stress and strain it is putting on homeowners.

We could discuss endless measures tweaking our property tax system, or we could look at options other states did or have done like proposition 13 in California, etc. Instead, let’s just think outside the box and come up with a property tax replacement, an elimination if you will. Are you with me so far? Here it goes.

For every penny, or 1% sales tax collected, it generates approximately 300 million in revenue. Property taxes collected in 2021 were 1,492 million. So, if we increased sales tax by a nickel and ½ penny (5.5%), that would generate 1.5 billion statewide. As you can see, this is more than enough revenue TO REPLACE ALL RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY TAXES STATEWIDE.

Too simple? Maybe? This would apply to residential properties not commercial or agricultural land. It would apply to the farm or ranch home because that is taxed separately from the agricultural land. Right now, our state sales tax is 4.5%. Adding the nickel would take it to 9.5%. If we wanted to be safe, we could make it 5.5% for an even dime (10%) state sales tax. If we added municipalities up to 2% more, that takes it up to 12%.

The advantage of this tax shift, called a “consumption tax”, means we are only taxed on what we consume, and another advantage is that our 13-1/2 million tourists would contribute more. In visiting with business owners, particularly those in the tourism industry, they felt a dime (10%) state sales tax would have minimal, if any, effect on their business. In visiting with homeowners, they overwhelmingly supported this tax shift. So, there you have it.

Recapping: This is only a proposal. Please send me your thoughts. Is it time to think out of the box? A dime state sales tax eliminates all residential property taxes within the borders of our great state that we call South Dakota.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative and candidate for Senate

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Lions ...

Thu, 12 May 2022 20:40:51 GMT

Lion Season is Officially Over!

Lions

Lion season is officially over in the Black Hills Fire Protection District. The quota was 60 lions or 40 females. The actual harvest came in at 26 females and 16 males for a total of 42 lions harvested. I believe this was the first season that neither of my two sons nor I got a lion or at least helped someone else get a lion. All three of us blanked.

It was a bad snow season which directly effects the hunting opportunities of lions. I did collect one lion story though. I was set up on the side of the mountain with my call down below me about 40 yards. I was at the entrance of a cave that was blocked off behind me. It was in the late afternoon with about 1-1/2 hours left of legal shooting time. (You can hunt all big game from ½ hour before sunrise and ½ hour after sunset.) Where I was at, when the sun goes behind the mountain to my right, it starts getting dark. Then when it is officially sunset, it’s a little darker and a half hour after sunset, its dark. On this evening there was cloud cover, so no light from the moon or stars.

I’m sitting there running my FoxPro through the remote, calling 4 minutes on and then 4 minutes off with 5 different lion calls in my repertoire. It was extremely windy, and I was hoping the wind would slow down like it sometimes does at sunset. Nope, no such luck. With about 15 minutes left of legal shooting time, I thought I heard a lion call behind me to my right. I put my call on mute and heard nothing, so started it up again and dang! It sounded like the call I had going, again up to my right. So, I’d shut off my call and the call to my right would seem to stop. It was very windy, so it was difficult to tell.

Anyway, its time to quit, so I stand, pick up my remote on a lanyard around my neck and tuck it in my parka. I always leave the call going. I don’t really know why, as it’s a little nerve-wracking walking down to retrieve my FoxPro. I also had a lion decoy set up. Once I got down to the FoxPro, I shut it off manually. It was then that I realized for sure that there was a lion because up behind me my call was still going, and I had my FoxPro in my hand shut off!

To make it even more interesting, the call I had going was a male growling and then a low throaty sound and then a second lion on this call was tweeting back kind of like a bird. This particular call had two lions calling in it. So, here I stand in total darkness with the call I was using still going off at 100 yards above me.

What did I do? Well, I thought, “There is no way this is a live situation with two lions mimicking the exact same call I had going.” I figured it had to be one of my sons or one of my hunting buddies pulling a prank on me. Actually, it wasn’t all that funny at the time, but I had convinced myself that it was a prank and proceeded the ½ mile hike, mostly downhill, to my pickup.

When I got to a crest in the hill going down, I could look and see my pickup and I was wondering who else’s vehicle was there. In the meantime, this two-lion call is parallel to me escorting me down the mountain. It was then I realized this was a live situation and that I had two lions 50 or 60 yards to my right.

I hit my key fob to my pickup to unlock it and turn on the lights. Not the brightest move because now I had lost my night vision. Call me chicken but what a relief once I got inside my pickup with the doors locked!!

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative and candidate for Senate

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Early Voting ...

Thu, 12 May 2022 20:40:46 GMT

and Amendment Charlie

It’s early voting season! Yep, it began last Friday, April 22nd and goes to June 6th. The actual Primary Election Day is Tuesday, June 7th. Our General Election is Tuesday, November 8th. Early voting can be accomplished at your county courthouse.

I stopped by my county courthouse (Pennington) and picked up a sample ballot along with what they call a “Primary Ballot Question Information Pamphlet.” This pamphlet is put out by our Secretary of State’s office. Does anyone remember who our Secretary of State is? It was in last week’s article as one of our constitutional officers. Yep, Steve Barnett! So, in this pamphlet, it talks about the pros and cons of Constitutional Amendment “C”. In the military we’d call the letter “C” Charlie.

So, what does Charlie do? Well, Charlie raises the bar from a simple majority, which would be 50% + 1, to a 3/5th vote, or in other words, 60%. This higher threshold Charlie is proposing is for any ballot measures imposing taxes, fees, or obligating funds, of anything over $10 million dollars. I voted on the floor of the House of Representatives to put it on the ballot and let our citizens decide. Charlie’s opponents, (those against Charlie), say that it is unconstitutional and that a lawsuit has already been filed against it.

Oh boy. Remember Constitutional Amendment A, or Alpha, in the General Election of 2020? Alpha was for marijuana legalization. It had hemp, medical marijuana, and recreational marijuana all bundled together under Alpha. The proponents (those for) argued that all components were about cannabis. The opponents (those against) argued that it was three separate subjects. By the way, our constitution states that any amendments must be single subject. Make sense? Anyway, the State Supreme Court finally (to an impatient person like me who thought it took for-ev-er) decided the case. Alpha was in fact 3 separate subjects so therefore it was deemed unconstitutional and was struck down. And, by the way, it passed on the ballot with a 54% approval.

So, here is the fifty-dollar question. Ready? Why in the world do we have Charlie on the ballot right now when we are not even sure if its constitutional or in other words, if it is legal? My prediction is if we the people, actually we the voters, because you have no say if you don’t vote, pass Charlie, we are going to wait until it works its way through the courts to find out if it was legal in the first place!! Some of you have figured out where I’m going with this. Why don’t we have the Secretary of State get a legal reading from our court system before it goes on the ballot in the first place? Now isn’t that a novel idea?

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative and candidate for Senate

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

The House of Representatives

Thu, 12 May 2022 20:40:41 GMT

Voted to Impeach!

At 11:04 MST, April 12, 2022, 36 of 70 lawmakers of the House of Representatives voted to impeach Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg (pronounced rounsborg). This was the very first impeachment since statehood Nov. 2, 1889. Thirty-six was a simple majority of House members elected. We did have 3 House members excused but a simple majority is figured of the number of House members elected, not the number of House members present.

I was one of the 36 who voted in favor of impeachment, as was my district mate Rep. Trish Ladner. I also entered the floor debate as a proponent for impeachment. You can listen to my floor speech and the other floor speeches on the internet. Go to Youtube, then search “SD Legislature Special Session April 12, 2022”.

The issue now goes to the State Senate for the trial. South Dakota has no history of impeachment like some other states, so we don’t have rules set up for the proceeding. The Senate is currently working on the proposed rules via the Legislative Procedures Committee. On April 26th they will meet, and the full Senate will act on the committee’s work the same day. The Senate impeachment trial is scheduled for June 21 and 22, 2022. Per South Dakota’s Constitution, Ravnsborg is currently suspended from all duties related to his office. He may only return to his office if he is acquitted in the Senate. Suspended Attorney General Ravnsborg has made this comment. “The House of Representatives voted, and I respect the process, but I look forward to the Senate trial where I believe I will be vindicated.”

On the civil side, suspended AG Ravnsborg has already pled “no contest” to two misdemeanor charges: illegal lane change and operating a cell phone while driving. He plea-bargained a 3rd misdemeanor of reckless driving and that misdemeanor was dropped. He has already paid the $5000 in fines and fees and has settled with the Boever family. The amount of the settlement is unknown at this time.

Currently, the Deputy Attorney General is filling in. If the Senate convicts and removes the suspended AG Ravnsborg from office, Governor Noem will appoint an Attorney General until this current term ends in January 2023.

The Attorney General is one of the Constitutional Officers. The Constitutional Officers include the Lieutenant Governor Larry Rhoden, Secretary of State Steve Barnett, Treasurer Josh Haeder, Auditor Rich Sattgast, Commissioner of School and Public Lands Ryan Brunner, Public Utilities Commissioners Chris Nelson, Kristie Fiegen and Gary Hanson. All these Constitutional Officers serve a 4-year term except the Public Utilities Commissioners who serve a 6-year term. The Constitutional Officers are selected at each party’s convention which usually is held a few weeks after the Primary Election.

This year’s Republican Convention is June 23-25 in Watertown, SD. The Republican delegates who are voted in on the June 7th Primary Election, will converge on Watertown to select the Republican Constitutional Officers. Only delegates may vote, and they must be there in person. In other words, no proxy or phone votes are allowed.

Once the Constitutional Officers are selected, they then are that party’s nominee for the November 8th General Election. The same process is true for the Democrat party. Here goes my famous line. Are you ready? CLEAR AS MUD, RIGHT?

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative and candidate for Senate

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Impeachment!

Thu, 07 Apr 2022 21:22:00 GMT

House of Representatives Special Session April 12th

Impeachment

“After careful and comprehensive investigation and consideration of the facts and application law, a majority of the Select Committee hereby concludes Attorney General Ravnsborg did not commit an impeachable offense in his conduct surrounding the death of Joe Boever,” Committee Chairman and House Speaker Spencer Gosch, R-Glenham, said following more than 4 hours of closed door deliberations. “The Select Committee recommends that articles of impeachment do not issue.”

No, I’m not making this up. That was a direct quote from Rep. Gosch. Unbelievable! The Select Committee was selected by Rep. Gosch because that goes with his duties as Speaker of the House. Also noteworthy, the Select committee had 9 members, 7 republicans and 2 Democrats. The vote of not to impeach was 6-2. All 6 Republicans voted not to recommend impeachment while the 2 Democrats voted to recommend impeachment. The reason the vote count doesn’t add up to 9, as that was the number of committee members, is that the Chairman, self-selected, Rep. Gosch, didn’t vote. He said his vote was only needed if there were a tie.

Here is the good news. The Select Committee selected by Speaker Gosch only makes a recommendation to the 70-member body of the House of Representatives. We, the individual members, have to vote our own conscience and no one other than ourselves can press the green “yea” button or the red “nay” button. We are having a Special Session on Tuesday, April 12, 2022 to vote on this issue. Yes, next week!

Here is my take on this situation.

- The first obvious “fix” was when the States Attorney finally decided to charge AG Ravnsborg with 3 misdemeanors:

o Careless driving

o Using a mobile electronic device while driving (cell phone)

o Failing to stay in his lane.

Most law enforcement and most states attorneys thought manslaughter or at least involuntary manslaughter would have been more appropriate. Once the States Attorney files the charge(s), it is final. Meaning it can’t be changed later to a more serious charge.

- Next, AG Ravnsborg plea-bargained and the careless driving charge was dropped. Now he’s charged with using a cell phone while driving and failing to stay in his lane; two misdemeanors, which are equivalent to two traffic tickets.

My thought is that, in recommending not to impeach, the Select Committee was using this reasoning: how can we impeach someone for two misdemeanors?

My understanding is that they used instead an “in office” clause to clear AG Ravnsborg. In office, like this happened outside his normal duty office hours, or he wasn’t in his official duty as the Attorney General when he hit and killed Mr. Boever. I’m not sure what “in office” means but it is irrelevant anyway.

Here’s what the House members need to look at:

*Jason Ravnsborg hit and killed Joe Boever on the night of September 12, 2020.

*He attempted to cover up this terrible tragedy by saying he thought he hit a deer.

*Accident reconstructionists’ scientific findings were that all 4 tires of AG Ravnsborg’s car were on the shoulder of the highway, outside the white line.

*The impact of Mr. Boever hitting the windshield was so hard that the windshield actually broke, sending Mr. Boever’s eyeglasses half on the floor in the front seat and half in the back seat.

*The body then propelled into the ditch close to the point of impact.

*AG Ravnsborg left the scene in a car he borrowed from the Hyde County Sheriff who is now deceased.

*It would be virtually impossible for AG Ravnsborg and the Sheriff not to see Joe Boever’s body. Remember, the flashlight was still on the next day when they did in fact find Mr. Boever’s body.

*Sec. of Public Safety, prior Colonel of the South Dakota Highway Patrol, Craig Price said that AG Ravnsborg was “untruthful” in his statement to investigators. Seriously? The top law enforcement officer in the state lied to investigators. This alone is reason to impeach!

*Sec. Price also said AG Ravnsborg received or sent a text reading, “Well at least the guy was a Democrat.” If that doesn’t make your blood boil, nothing will! Mentioning a dead person’s political party?! This is not the Republican Party of which I’m a member.

I most certainly will vote to impeach AG Ravnsborg and hope many House members do the same. It truly is the right thing to do. If we receive a majority vote of 36 to impeach, then the Senate has to wait 20 days to convene and then hold the trial and decide sentencing, which could and should include removal from office.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative and candidate for Senate

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Medical Marijuana

Thu, 24 Mar 2022 13:45:05 GMT

Part 2

Greetings! I thought I’d get through medicinal marijuana in one article, but I guess not. Just a quick alibi please! From last week’s article regarding medical marijuana, a correction: Doctors, nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants do not give patients their medical marijuana card. This is done through the state, more specifically, the Dept. of Health (DOH).

This is pretty bureaucratic so let me try to explain the hoops you go through to get a card:

- Patient schedules an appointment with their physician. At that appointment, the physician (or nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant) determines whether the patient would benefit from the therapeutic or palliative use of medical cannabis for their condition.

- If yes, a medical certification is issued through an online portal for the patient. So, if you don’t have access to a computer or internet, I guess you’re out of luck.

- Then the physician must create an account at medcannabisapplication.sd.gov to provide certifications.

- The patient will receive an email to create an account at the previously mentioned URL address.

- Once completed, the patient must wait for the Dept. of Health’s approval.

o Applications that include a minor patient need required caregivers to be registered. Caregivers will also receive an email to create an account at the same URL.

- DOH has a 15-day “suspense” to process applications to have medical cannabis cards in the mail to the patient or caregiver. So, depending on how long it takes the U. S. Postal Service to get your card from Pierre to you…I’d say 2-3 days, that makes it what, 17-18 days for DOH to get your cannabis card to you.

- Finally, the cannabis cardholder can purchase medicinal cannabis from a certified dispensary in South Dakota.

To put a positive spin on this, first the people spoke at the ballot box regarding medical marijuana in IM-26 which passed by 76%. Next, the Legislature listened to the voters and went to work through the summer studies and during Session to authorize the DOH to put the rules together and issue medical marijuana cards. I guess we are calling them cannabis cards. So, if you can convince your doctor that you would benefit from the therapeutic or palliative use of medical cannabis for your condition, have at it. Providing you follow these way-too-bureaucratic steps, medical cannabis is legal for you.

Next week I’d like to discuss our possibly skyrocketing property taxes and a possible solution to this big problem.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative, and candidate for Senate

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

The 97th legislative session is over!

Fri, 18 Mar 2022 15:00:51 GMT

Whew! The 97th Legislative Session is over. All we have left to do is go back on Monday, March 28 tor Veto Day. If there are any vetoes by Gov. Noem, we have the option to overturn them at that time. That would take a 2/3rds vote in each chamber to override a gubernatorial veto. We also are probably going to have to go back to finish with the impeachment proceedings for Attorney General Ravnsborg. I’ll write more on that in a later article.

What are the hot topics? Campgrounds, rifle ranges, federal stimulus money, property tax relief, marijuana? Let’s go with marijuana, shall we? Going back to our General Election in November of 2020, on the ballot then was Constitutional Amendment A, authorizing the use of marijuana. It was broken down into 3 components: hemp, recreational marijuana, and medicinal marijuana. The amendment passed with 54% approval. However, our State Supreme Court overruled the constitutionality of this amendment in that it was ruled to have 3 separate subjects. Our constitution specifies that it must be a single subject. Also noteworthy, hemp was passed by a previous legislature, so I still haven’t figured out how it could be on the ballot.

Also, on the ballot was Initiated Measure 26 (IM26). This measure was to legalize medical marijuana. It passed with 76% approval. Interesting to me was that medical marijuana was on the ballot 2 times, once in Constitutional Amendment A and again in IM26. Once IM26 passed, we in the legislature, along with the Department of Health, went to work to develop the rules implementing medical marijuana.

We had a summer study of which I was a member, to work on this implementation. Consequently, when Session started on Jan. 11, 2022, we had dozens of marijuana bills. So, what happened? Well, we didn’t approve recreational marijuana. The reason I voted against it was two-fold. 1) Recreational marijuana is against federal law. 2) Law enforcement was unanimously against legalizing recreational marijuana. What will probably happen next is that it will be on the ballot in the General Election this November 2022, hopefully as an initiated measure. I’m not sure it will pass since with all the 3 components (recreational, medical marijuana, and hemp), it only received 54% of the vote. Recreational marijuana might not pass if it’s a stand-alone, single subject. Recreational marijuana is NOT legal in South Dakota currently.

Going next to medical marijuana, it’s pretty bureaucratic but I’ll try to get down to basics here. First off, to buy medical marijuana you need to get a card from your doctor authorizing you to do so. We did pass legislation authorizing physicians’ assistants and advanced nurse practitioners to prescribe and issue cards also. Then you go to the various medical marijuana dispensaries that will be springing up throughout the state and purchase your marijuana.

Another item that had a lot of debate was if you can grow your own marijuana. We called this “home grow.” After much legislative debate, it came down to this: You can “home grow” 4 plants, two being juvenile plants and two adult plants. The difference between the two is that juvenile plants are non-flowering, while adult plants are flowering.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Last week of session ...

tgoodwin@gmail.com (Tim Goodwin) — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 16:26:33 GMT

Greetings! We are in our last week of session with our last day being Thursday, March 10, 2022. Next week I will start writing about what happened during the 97th Legislative Session.

On Friday, March 4th, 2022, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Denis McDonough, sent Robert McDivitt and Lisa Curnes to announce possible changes to veterans’ health care in the Black Hills. Robert McDivitt is the Vision 23 Network Director and Lisa Curnes is the Medical Director at Veterans Administration Black Hills. There is a new board called Asset Infrastructure Review or AIR which is releasing their report on March 14, 2022. Supposedly in this report, it will be recommended that a new veterans’ hospital will be built in Rapid City while relegating the current VA hospitals at Ft. Meade and in Hot Springs to community-based outpatient clinics. These recommendations will be presented to President Biden in 2023.

The new veterans’ hospital would be separate from the outpatient clinic that is currently under construction in Rapid City. Dream Design International is the contractor for this facility, and it is slated to be open in the fall of 2023. I know most of us veterans are shocked by this announcement and rightfully so. Here are the timelines that were provided:

*The official recommendation to President Biden will be on Jan. 31, 2023.

*President Biden will then notify the Asset Infrastructure Review Board (AIR) and Congress if he approves it, no later than Feb. 15, 2023.

*If disapproved, the commission can revise the recommendation and submit a new list. President Biden then has until March 30, 2023, to approve the recommendation and submit it to Congress.

This reminds me of the Base Realignment Closure (BRAC) back in 2005. If you remember, the Department of Defense was moving the B-1 Bomber fleet from Ellsworth AFB to Dyess AFB in Texas where the other half of the fleet was located. This proposal would ultimately have shut down our only military installation in South Dakota. At the time, our two US Senators, Tim Johnson and John Thune, along with our then Governor Mike Rounds, headed by the Military Affairs Board of the Rapid City Chamber of Commerce (now called Elevate) went all out to save the base. I remember attending a rally at the Civic Center (now called Monument) where the place was packed with passionate citizens from all over the Black Hills. We saved the base and then some, and we can save the VAs in Hot Springs and Fort Meade now.

Switching subjects, Ukraine, what a horrific sight! Our president is having us sit by and watch the annihilation of an entire country. Sure, there are hundreds of acts of heroism by the Ukrainian people, but they are outmatched beyond belief by the Russian army. What absolutely appalls me, and it should you, is that we still haven’t shut off Russia’s oil revenue. We are giving billions of dollars of relief to Ukraine while the other hand is financing Russia’s war effort through its oil exports to the rest of the free world, including the United States of America. Remember we were, less than two years ago, oil independent and exporting oil. Now we are importing oil from Russia, which is financing this brutal unprovoked war. Meanwhile, gas and diesel prices are climbing daily with no end in sight!

God bless the Ukrainian people and God bless the United States of America.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

War in Ukraine ...

Thu, 03 Mar 2022 03:36:51 GMT

could strain South Dakota's economy

Greetings! It’s hard to know where to start. Like most everyone, I’ve got this sick feeling in my stomach over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. If gas prices go to $5 or over $6 per gallon, that really will have an impact on our economy here in South Dakota. In the Black Hills its not uncommon to see license plates from every state on any given day. Sky high gas prices will definitely have an impact on that. Also, our farmers and ranchers rely on diesel fuel as do our over-the-road truckers. This could be a very serious blow to our state economy.

I’m not totally sure some of our sanctions on Russia are strong enough. For instance, not sanctioning Russia’s oil exports. This seems crazy to me. With $100 per barrel of oil, we, and the rest of the free world, are actually financing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (!?)

I feel that freezing their assets in their foreign bank reserves is the right thing to do. Russia’s currency is in rubles. Before the invasion the ruble was 0.5 to 1 U.S. dollar. Now its up to 0.83 rubles to 1 U.S. dollar. This week it will even be higher, proving these banking sanctions are destroying their currency.

The next thing the Biden administration needs to do is reinstate the Keystone XL pipeline. This is a national security issue Mr. President. Copying Reagan’s famous line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall,” we should chant, “Mr. President Biden, bring back the Keystone XL pipeline.”

We had a bill this last week that rolled back the ½ cent sales tax added for teacher pay in 2016. In the House, we passed this rollback, taking our state sales tax from 4-1/2 cents back to 4 cents. The Senate killed this initiative last Friday. With the current world situation, it probably was the right thing to do.

Speaking again of the world’s situation, how about the Ghost of Kiev? Google it and you will see this Ukrainian fighter pilot has gotten credit with over 9 kills of Russian Migs (fighter jets). Now how cool is that?

Also very encouraging is the will of the Ukrainian people staying to fight. All men 60 and under were ordered to stay in the country to fight the Russians. Even the president of Ukraine is staying in their capital and is prepared to fight to the end. During WWII, the Germans (Hitler), and the Japanese Emperor decided not to invade the continental United States, as both said the cost of conquering a country that has a rifle behind every tree is too high. Russia’s Putin no doubt is learning that lesson now. I pray Putin doesn’t “go nuke” on Ukraine or any part of the world. These are unprecedented, scary times. God bless the Ukrainian people and God bless the United States of America.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Week 7

Fri, 25 Feb 2022 14:39:50 GMT

Legislative days 26-29

Greetings we are in week 7, legislative days 26-29. After this week we have two weeks left, legislative days 30-37. Our last day (37) is March 10th with Veto Day on March 28. We are going extremely hard processing 551 bills for this session. We have what we call Crossover Day, Wednesday, February 23rd. This is the last day for us to hear House bills. It’s been known to cover the clock in the House chamber once it gets close to midnight, so we accomplish all bills, passed or failed, by the end of Crossover Day.

I think the 500-lb elephant in the room now is the pending impeachment proceeding for our Attorney General. I feel this process needs to come to closure. Its not fair to the Boever family. Joe Boever was the victim who died after being struck by Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg’s vehicle. Nor is it fair to Jason Ravnsborg to keep this going on any longer.

So, how does this process go? First off, the House of Representatives does the impeachment proceedings. If Mr. Ravnsborg is impeached, the proceedings then go over to the Senate. There the Senate decides the sentencing, which could include removal from office.

So, where are we? The Speaker of the House has appointed a Select Committee on Impeachment. It consists of mostly attorneys and former law enforcement members in the House of Representatives. This committee has had hearings and is weighing through the thousands of pages of testimony and information from the Attorney General’s accident investigation file.

We passed House Resolution 7001 during Special Session. In this resolution, we directed the committee to redact any information that is not relevant or necessary in considering the results of the final report. Once done, this report/file will be released to the public.

In the meantime, we non-committee members of the Select Committee can go into our Legislative Research Council (LRC) office and look at the file. This is on a voluntary basis, and I haven’t a count of how many members have looked at the file.

Hopefully, soon the Select Committee will finalize their results giving the rest of the House body a recommendation as to impeach or not to impeach. I really, really would like this accomplished before Session is over on March 10th! We do have the option of making a motion from the floor for an impeachment vote. I hesitate to do this until the Select Committee has finished their work. However, like I said at the onset, this has gone on long enough.

Please keep Jason Ravnsborg and the Boever family in your prayers. We can only imagine the pain and anguish they are going through and will continue to go through for a very long time.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Article V

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 14:52:12 GMT

Convention of States

Article V, Convention of States

Greetings! We have 5 weeks down, 4 more to go. We have 339 House bills introduced and 212 Senate bills for a total of 551 bills this session.

One resolution that comes before the legislature each year is the Convention of States, Article V resolution. What I’m talking about is in Article V of our Constitution. Here it gives the states the option of calling a Convention of States. A group of patriots flood the Capitol each year lobbying to get their resolution calling for a convention of states passed. Opponents to this measure include the John Birch Society along with several legislators who have opposed it in the past.

It has scared the heck out of a lot of us having 3 delegates from South Dakota going to D.C. or some yet to be determined location to open and rewrite a portion of our Constitution. Last year’s Session, I spoke against having Convention of States (COS) when it came before the House State Affairs Committee of which I am a member. After the committee vote, (It was defeated 7 to 6.), I visited with the proponents of COS and expressed that if the Biden administration continues the irresponsible spending spree, I might reconsider my opposition to having a COS.

As most of us realize, our Federal Government has continued this reckless, out of control spending, dishing out millions of dollars to the states. Once we receive these funds, there is no mechanism to send it back and if we could, it would just go to another state and not go to reducing the national debt.

Speaking of national debt, it is at $30 trillion and rising. What makes this even more astounding is that it is borrowed money, much of it from our adversary Communist China.

So…this year I researched again, did a lot of soul searching and decided we must do something. I feel this country is on the brink of bankruptcy with no end in sight. I decided I was going to go all in and support COS.

This year, like the past 5 years, I’ve been in Pierre when the COS patriots come in force. I did my research and voted in favor of COS. I gave the “do pass” motion in the State Affairs Committee and spoke to why we should pass COS. It passed this time 7 to 6 and went to the floor for a floor vote. I again spoke during the floor debate in favor of having a COS.

I also mentioned that the opponent’s solution to not have a COS was to add amendments to the Constitution. Right now, we have 27 amendments to our Constitution. They argue we could add a 28th Amendment for term limits of our Congressmen and Senators and perhaps a 29th Amendment calling for a balanced federal budget.

In my floor speech, I mentioned that and said that I was in favor of that also. What I’m not in favor of is standing by and watching this great nation go bankrupt.

To call a Convention of States, it takes 34 states to sign on. Currently, there are 17. Once the convention is held, it takes 38 states to ratify whatever measures were passed at the convention. This, I feel, is a good safeguard should the convention pass something absurd like striking the 2nd Amendment (the Right to Bear Arms) or give the large population states 3 senators and small population states one senator. If any crazy stuff like that came out of the COS, it would take 38 states to ratify or in other words, agree with these drastic constitutional changes. My thoughts here are that there are way more small states than large states, population wise, so that no way could it be ratified.

We are living in unprecedented, scary times and we must do something.

The House passed the Convention of States Resolution for the first time, 39 yeas to 30 nays with 1 absentee. Now it is up to the Senate to do their part.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

HB 1048

Wed, 09 Feb 2022 22:47:01 GMT

Campsites in Custer State Park

Greetings! Hopefully this is the last I’ll be writing about HB-1048, Campsites in Custer State Park (CSP). What has happened? In the Ag and Natural Resources Committee, HB-1048 was amended from the 176 campsites by the Wildlife Loop to 66 campsites by Stockade Lake. Next, I did a 2nd amendment to make these 66 campsites for tent camping only. This was a compromise amendment which did have a lot of support from private campgrounds outside of CSP. The amendment failed in committee. So, the amendment of 66 campsites came up for a vote and failed also. So, it’s over. No more additional campsites in Custer State Park.

I visited with Gov. Noem about this and she is fine with it. The state motto, “Under God the People Rule” couldn’t be more fitting in this regard. You saw your government going in a direction you didn’t like, so you reached out to all 105 of the legislators and let your feelings be known. This is a prime example of the constituency letting their elected legislators know how they felt. Your efforts stopped the camping sites expansion cold in its tracks.

I was criticized a bit early on because I was trying to work a compromise and didn’t commit about whether I was for or against the expansion bill (HB-1048) before I heard the testimony in committee. That is the way I represent you. I wait for the bill to come before the committee to which it is assigned. In the case of HB-1048, it came before the House Ag and Natural Resources of which both Rep. Ladner and I are members. To spout off that you’re against a bill before it’s had a hearing, I think is irresponsible. I also like to wait to hear from my constituents about how you feel about the bill. I then contact key individuals, usually by phone, but if I’m back for the weekend, then in person. It’s been an advantage living in District 30 for a long time and being in the legislature a while. This is my 6th legislative session.

What I’m getting at is this.

-I don’t comment on if I’m for or against a particular bill until after it has had its initial hearing.

-If I can’t make it to the hearing, which happens more often than not because I’m in my own committee hearings, I then, if there is time, listen to the hearing. If time doesn’t permit me to do that, I look at the yea and nay votes and contact one or two legislators and ask why they voted that way. After all this I feel I have enough information to decide on how to vote on a particular bill.

-Next, I rally the vote for or against the bill, but that’s an entirely different article about how that process works.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Hear ye, Hear ye ...

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 02:58:58 GMT

Custer State Park Campground 2nd! Edition

Since writing last week about the 176 campsites to be constructed at the start of the Wildlife Loop, a lot has changed. First off, Gov. Kristi Noem listened to you and has agreed that this is not a good plan. My hat is off to Gov. Noem because she believes in listening to the citizens of South Dakota. Wow! Now that shows the character of this lady.

So, now what? Well, she immediately got her staff in and had them change course. This plan I’m going to lay out was in draft form before the 176, over-the-top plan was surfaced. Here is the new plan.

- First, the 176 campsites at the start of the Wildlife Loop are done; thrown in the trash can so to speak.

- Second, a new plan of 66 units, located next to Stockade Lake, is recommended.

Now, before we throw the baby out with the bathwater, let’s study this a bit. This plan is for 66 campsites with just electricity, no water hookups, for camping. The cost per campsite proposed is $30 per night. The location is 50 acres located in a hay field next to Stockade Lake.

So, where does that put the number of camping spots in Custer State Park? My information is that there are 389 camping sites now in the park. The park has lost sites throughout the years. No, I’m not sure why, but I did find out there were 465 camping sites in 1970. With the proposed 66 sites, that would bring the total sites in Custer State Park to 455 or ten less than 1970.

Does that seem reasonable to you? I think they should all be tent camping sites only. What does that do to the private campgrounds? Currently there are over 14,000 campsites in the Black Hills. Many campground owners are expanding. Of course, this is at their own expense. That’s what private enterprise does. It takes all the risks in hopes of reaping the profits in future years. My view is that profit is not a dirty word.

So, the question we all need to answer for ourselves is: Are 455 camping spots in Custer State Park hurtful economically to the private campgrounds? Some traffic numbers in the park that I found interesting are Custer State Park had 2.3 million visitations in 2021. That was 69,000 more visitations than 2020. The increase in visitations is up 25% over the 9-year average. So, the question here is: are 455 campsites unreasonable?

The next area that might raise some concern is the cost of this project. The figure used was 4.8 million dollars! I was having heart palpitations when the cost was 10 million for 176 campsites. I had a contractor friend of mine ask Game, Fish and Parks to go over some of the costs. Here’s what he came up with. $5000 per electrical box per site. This obviously, so my contractor says, seems very high. His estimate is less than $1000 per site, saving 264K. The cost of a bathhouse with 8 showers each for men and women in the unit, along with flush toilets, was $350,000. You can build a really nice residential home for $350,000 and that includes buying the lot the house sits on. In this case the bathhouse lot is state property, so no cost for the land. My contractor says $175K would be the cost savings.

Next is the engineering required before construction begins. Game, Fish, and Parks cost was $389,000. My contractor stated he had 90 lots for housing engineering done for $150K. His estimate was $150K for the engineering of these 66 campsites saving $239K.

The cost of black-topping one half mile road into the campground is 1.23 million. My contractor says 1 million per mile of blacktop is using the high figure. Remember, if we go with just tent campsites, the weight would be less, leaving less wear and tear on the blacktop. My contractor estimates a cost of 500K, so savings is 800K.

The cost of each camping site my contractor has not done before, so we will leave that one out for now. So, where are we at in savings?

Engineering $239K

Electrical boxes $264K

Bathhouse $175K

Blacktop road $800K

TOTAL $1,478,000

These are rough estimates, but it does help all of us wondering why costs are so high. My contractor stated that if he had the contract for these campsites, he estimates he would profit over 2 million dollars.

What do you want me to do as your representative for this district, district 30, of which Custer State Park is included? Here is my thought. I will propose an amendment to HB-1048 requiring only tent campsites and a maximum cost of $3 million. Please think about this plan and then shoot me an email with your thoughts and/or recommendations.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

HB-1048

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 02:55:31 GMT

What should we talk about??

Greetings! Well, what should we talk about? Hmmm. How about House Bill 1048? Trust me, I’ll have this bill number in my head for a long, long time!! What’s it about? Game, Fish, and Parks have asked for a 10 million dollar appropriation to build 175 new campsites in Custer State Park.

I was quoted last week in the Rapid City Journal as saying that I’d like to look for some common ground where all sides would be happy. The reason for that sound bite was that I thought we should let the legislative process work itself out. To say I was opposed to this bill before it even came to committee, I think, is irresponsible. So, let’s just go through all the checks and balances that HB-1048 needs to go through before it would get through committee.

First, the agency, GF&P, needs to take it to the committee to which this bill has been assigned. In this case it is the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. Here the proponent’s testimony will be heard from the Secretary of Game, Fish, and Parks and any others who wish to speak in favor of the bill.

Next, opponents’ testimony. Here it is all who assemble in Pierre and those who are hooked in via internet testify against the bill. You can call in to the Legislative Research Council (LRC) to get hooked up for remote testimony. The phone number is 605-773-3251.

Next, there are committee questions where members of the committee can ask questions of any of the opponents or proponents who testified. After that portion of the hearing is over, it comes time for committee discussion and/or action. Here members of the committee can discuss among committee members about the bill, add an amendment, or move the bill in whatever direction they wish it to go.

If a member moves to send the bill to the 41st day, that is legislative speak to kill the bill because by state law we can only meet for a maximum of 40 days. (This year we have a 37-day session plus one for Veto Day 2 weeks after session is over.)

My point here is that before I say I’m not voting for a bill, I would like to hear the proponent and opponent comments. Make sense? I would also like to add that the reason I think there is so much opposition to this bill is because the Superintendent of Custer State Park, Matt Snyder, along with Secretary of Game, Fish and Parks, Kevin Robbling and their staffs have done such an outstanding job of maintaining Custer State Park that it truly is the crown jewel, not only of South Dakota but also the entire nation.

So, where do I stand? I am willing to listen to the hearing before Ag and Natural Resources, of which I am a committee member. After all that process, I will listen to the thousand+ of emails I have received and then vote. My position is to represent the citizens of my district and with 1000+ vote no emails and one vote yes email, I will vote to present my constituents with a no vote.

There is a chance of tabling the bill, which then cancels any further discussion. Then the bill is voted as to table it or not. If the bill is brought back off the table, say like next year, it goes through this process all over again.

Under God the People Rule

Representative Tim R. Goodwin, District 30

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

On our way to Pierre!

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 02:55:18 GMT

I’m writing this while Marcia is packing her stuff to go to Pierre with me in the morning. Session starts on Tuesday, January 11; Leadership meeting 10am, Caucus at 11am, Gavel in at noon, State of the State address at 1pm. On Monday night, those of us in leadership have a meeting with the governor at her state residence going over her State of the State Address. On January 11, you can watch the governor’s address on South Dakota Public Broadcast tv. Also, you can watch Legislative Session each day on Channel 9 (Directv). Usually, Session starts at 1pm MST. Check tv listings each day to see times. If you do watch, I’m sitting in the back row, 3rd column from the Speaker’s Rostrum’s right.

Speaking of the Speaker, there was a blurb on the news the other night with the Speaker’s and my mug shots. Basically, Austin Goss, a Pierre reporter, was seeking a story about House leadership positions possibly changing. What we do each 2-year term is elect leadership positions. This is done by a majority vote. We are in our 2nd year of this term, so no elections will be taking place. Leadership positions in our Republican Caucus include Majority Leader, Assistant Majority Leader, and we have 5 Whip positions I hold one of the 5 Whip positions.

On the floor we have two leadership positions: Speaker of the House and Speaker Pro Tem who is basically the assistant speaker. These positions are voted on by the entire body, meaning our 8 Democrats vote on these two positions as well as the Republicans.

The Democrats have their own Caucus and leadership positions which are selected within their caucus. The Assistant Minority Leader and the Minority Leader sit to my left in the back row, to the Speaker’s right. Clear as mud like “stage right” and “stage left”.

Kind of a funny story. A couple years ago, we had Session until about midnight. It must have been the last couple of days of Session. Anyway, a bunch of us were wired up and hungry, so we decided to go downtown in Pierre and find a burger and relax a bit. We were all on an adrenaline rush, so sleep was out of the question for at least a couple of hours. We walked into this establishment, one of the few open at that late hour, and all the customers started yelling our names. We drove in separate vehicles, so kept coming in the place in 2 or 3 person increments. Each time another legislator came through the door, they would yell that legislator’s name and say where he or she sat on the House floor.

Curiosity got the best of me, so I went to visit with them and find out what was going on. When I approached them, one said, “You’re Tim Goodwin. You sit clear in the back, 3rd row in.”!? I told them, “Yea,” that was right, but how did they know? Well, you’ve probably guessed it, they watch SDPB each day. They then joined us and wanted to talk about issues!! We all groaned and said that we were fed up to here, (motioning toward our heads), with issues and just wanted to relax a bit. So, there you have it. There are actual Legislative groupies who watch Session every day!

Its really pretty neat when I’ll be at my desk and get an email or text reading, “Who was that you were just talking to?” This could only happen in good old South Dakota where…Under God, the People Rule.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

97th Legislative Session

tgoodwin@gmail.com (Tim Goodwin) — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 19:21:01 GMT

begins January 11th!

Greetings! Holy cow! This is my last writing before the 97th Legislative Session begins. Yep, Session starts on January 11, 2022. Man, now I got to remember to write 2022 instead of 2021. Our session this year goes 38 days. Our last day is March 10th. We come home and then head back for what we call Veto Day which is on March 28th. All bills have to be introduced by Feb. 2nd.

Speaking of bills, let’s run through the procedure of how a bill becomes law. Basically, there are 8 steps to how a bill becomes law.

1. A bill starts with an idea usually from a constituent who contacts their State Senator or one of the two House members in each district. The legislator takes this idea and guides it through to final passage via the legislature.

2. First, the legislature takes the idea to our Legislative Research Council (LRC) to draft the bill into legal language.

3. The legislator then become the Prime Sponsor. If the legislator is a House member, it’s a House bill. If he or she is a Senator, the bill is a Senate bill. For example, HB-1237 is, of course, a House bill and SB-50 is a Senate bill.

4. Next, the bill is given its first reading in whatever Chamber it’s starting in, House or Senate. First reading means the bill’s number and title are read aloud.

5. After that, the bill is assigned a committee. That committee chair schedules a hearing to take testimony on the bill. If the bill passes by majority vote, it is sent to the floor of that Chamber.

6. Once the bill reaches the floor, it is debated and then voted on by the entire body. Remember, the House of Representatives has 70 members, two for each district, and the Senate has 35 members, one for each district. If the bill passes, it goes to the other body, where it goes through the same committee process.

7. If the bill passes both the House and Senate, it is sent to the Governor. If she signs it, the bill becomes law. If she doesn’t sign it, or in other words vetoes the bill, it is sent back to the Legislature. At that point, we decide whether to override the veto or uphold her veto. If the legislators vote to override the veto, it then becomes law [if a 2/3rds vote is achieved in each body; that being 47 in the House and 24 in the Senate].

8. The law then goes into effect on our state’s new year which starts on July 1st. I know we operate on a calendar of 1 January-31 December. The federal government’s calendar is 1 October-30 September, and our state’s is 1 July-30 June. If there is an emergency clause on the bill, it goes into effect immediately upon the Governor’s signature. An emergency clause also requires a 2/3rds vote in each chamber.

Remember February 2nd is the last day to introduce a bill. So, if you have a great idea to solve a problem at the state level, you have until then to get your legislator to guide it through this process.

Under God, the people rule.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Happy New Year!!

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 23:51:35 GMT

Affordable housing a priority for 2022

I’m writing this Christmas Day as, once lion season starts at 0655 hours tomorrow morning, writing will be the last thing on my mind. I’m hunting the next 3 days with Lee Qualm, the previous House Majority Leader. I’ll let you know how we did.

Let’s talk about the 500-lb guerilla that’s affecting our state more than anything else. Its actually two parts. Overemployment and affordable work force housing. Yep, I said that right. We have too many jobs for our population. The Help Wanted signs we all see all over the retail businesses, and the factory job vacancies, along with the need for workers in our ag. community will not change until we get affordable housing so that workers can move here and receive both a living wage and an affordable residential living place.

It is estimated we are more than 10,000 housing units short. That’s how many employment vacancies exist in South Dakota. I was speaking at a luncheon the other day and was challenged on the 10K figure for housing shortage. OK. Let’s say its only 8000 short. What are we as a state doing about it? I think 12K shortage is probably the more realistic figure.

Now let’s address the other part of the “guerilla”. I hear something like this daily, “We like South Dakota just the way it is, Tim. We don’t need any more people moving here.” Sound familiar? Usually, the same folks who say this go on to say they wished there was a way their kids and/or grandkids could stay in South Dakota, or move back here, but even though they can get a job, there’s no place for them to live. In our little “heaven on earth” we live in, I call it the Black Hills, that is probably more a mantra than the rest of South Dakota.

Here’s another way to look at it. Most of us in the Black Hills moved here. When we arrived, our friends and neighbors welcomed us with open arms. So, what we are saying now is that we are established and comfortable and love living here; wouldn’t move for anything. But we don’t want anyone else to move here. Then, in our next breath, we contradict what we said by blurting out that we wish there was housing for our loved ones to live here also. Well, the reality is that we can’t have it both ways. When you’re green you grow, when you’re ripe you rot! The meaning here is that if we want to continue to have the number one economy in America, we need housing.

I volunteered and was selected to be on Work Force Housing Summer Study which went clear into fall. Through data from this study, Gov. Kristi Noem has proposed leveraging work force housing by basically having the developer pay 1/3, the town/county pay 1/3, and the state pay 1/3 in housing development across the state. This fund has a 600-million-dollar ceiling and is definitely aggressively heading us in the right direction. I have been working with lobbyists representing the mobile home industry and we might have struck pay dirt or hit the mother lode to use a gold-miners’ phrase.

There is a plant in South America we have been in contact with that is like a mobile home plant. The difference is that they make apartments such as efficiency, 1000-square-foot modules, and hook them together like Legos. You know the Legos your kids and grandkids got for Christmas. They are interested in having a plant in both east river, like the Sioux Falls area, and west river someplace in the Black Hills. These apartment units come out 95% completed from the assembly line and then just hook together. Their intent is to make 1000 apartments for each location per year with a 3-year tryout period. The devil is always in the details, but I am optimistic we have a good chance of making this a reality. I promise to keep you posted.

Under God the people rule!

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Merry Christmas

Wed, 22 Dec 2021 17:08:00 GMT

and a Happy New Year!

Before wishing you Happy New Year, Marcia and I hope you all had a Merry Christmas cherishing Jesus’ birth with family and friends. We had a great time while celebrating Christ’s birth; two family parties east river and two west river. Our grandkids are a real joy and each year are more adorable than the last. We love being grandparents!

A Christmas bonus for me, no not in the monetary sense, was that my taxidermist got my 2021 lion finished. I harvested this lion on Jan. 9th, 2021. My rule for getting anything back from a taxidermist is that it should be before the next hunting season with an absolute deadline of one year. Lion season started in South Dakota on December 26 and runs through April 30 or until 40 females have been harvested, whichever comes first. If neither 40 females or 60 lions total have been harvested, the season ends April 30. We got that changed last year. No, it wasn’t because I was in the legislature in Pierre being preoccupied January through March. LOL.

The coolest part of lion season here is that everyone eligible for a hunting license can get a lion tag. It is based on a quota harvested system. All you need to do is pull up the Game, Fish, and Parks website and apply online. The cost is $28. Each lion must get checked in by Game, Fish, and Parks. That is how they keep track of the count.

Back to Christmas! I know I could talk about lion hunting forever. My grown sons are just as bad if that is possible!?

What really was a genuine bonus was that Marcia and I attended the Black Hills Children’s Home Christmas party. It was held on their campus just south of Rockerville on the old Keystone Road. Just the beauty of the setting makes the trip worthwhile. So, anyway, we arrived to greetings and handshakes and took our seats.

The Master of Ceremonies announced that the Children’s Home didn’t have a music teacher. That position remains open if anyone is interested. So, we were going to have an old-fashioned sing-along. Instead of the children performing a traditional Christmas program, we all sang! Yep, every Christmas song I’d ever heard and a few that I hadn’t. No political correctness here as every Christian Christmas carol was included. The words were on a screen with accompanying music, and we all sang; adults, children, staff sang until our hears were content! The children were seated amongst the audience, and they too had the time of their life. The littlest were dancing which was adorable.

The XO, or sorry, Army slang, the Executive Director, Michelle Lavallee asked if we could meet one of the students. She told us he hadn’t had a visitor in over 4 years. Man! If that doesn’t tug on my heartstrings! Of course, we agreed eagerly. We met a young man who is 12 years old. He, like the rest of the children, was dressed in his Sunday best dress slacks, shirt and tie! The young ladies wore dresses or skirts. Boy! It wasn’t like that at the other Christmas programs I attended. Anyway, this young man was a joy to visit with. He was big for his age, about my height. He said that he loved sports, particularly playing football and basketball. I made a remark that I was too tall to play basketball, so I wrestled instead. That got a big smile on his face as he caught my humor. We had just a great conversation with a person one would think would be down on his luck, so to speak. That’s truly a credit to the outstanding staff at the Children’s Home.

Remember, this is a 24-hour facility, and they had a student who hadn’t had a visitor in four years.

While we were walking back to our pickup, we were awed by just the beauty of the campus and how spectacular the Children’s Home truly is. We reminisced about a staff that didn’t have a music teacher and made the best of it. I’d say it was the most memorable Christmas program I’d ever attended.

Wishing you a Happy New Year! Remember our state motto: Under God, the people rule.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

The Season for Celebrating!

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 18:02:07 GMT

and ... GO ARMY!

Tis the Christmas season which is a great time of the year celebrating the birth of the Christ child. I’m not trying to take anything away from that, but before Christmas is here, there are some GREAT college football games!!

I had the distinct pleasure of taking my oldest grandchild, Rachel, to the Wisconsin Badgers vs Minnesota Gophers game in the twin cities two Saturdays ago. Rachel is a twin and attends the University of Wisconsin. This fall she really got into Badger football home games. Who wouldn’t with 85 thousand screaming fans? Their last game of the regular season was in the Gophers’ Stadium, so we went, along with little sister Leah. I’ve been to SDSU Jackrabbit games and five or six Nebraska games back when Big Red was a powerhouse. This Badger/Gopher game was over the top with excitement, passion, and just great college football.

The Badgers were heavy favorites but got behind and eventually lost to the mighty Gophers. We sat in the visitor section since Rachel is a Badger, and even though the Badgers lost, had the time of our lives. I was also impressed with how polite and courteous the Minnesota fans were. We all walked and visited on the way back to our vehicles. It was just one of those great experiences in life.

Speaking of greatness, did you hear that our Governor Noem was selected by the American Legislative Exchange Council as the best Governor in the nation? Way to go, Governor Noem! Man, it doesn’t get any better than that! Now, this award is only possible because of the greatness of the citizens of South Dakota. We never locked down or gave up; just all worked as hard as ever during one of the most trying times, vaccine, or no vaccine. We didn’t give up and consequently South Dakota has the strongest economy in America. Yep! I guess that does qualify Governor Noem as the best governor.

Boy! Did I ever digress from college football? I left out the game of the year. Anyone who knows me knows what I’m going to say next. The 122nd Army vs Navy game this Saturday, December 11th, 1 pm MST. The Navy sets a uniform matchup with Army by showcasing fighter jet uniforms, but their helmets are jaw dropping. The right side of the helmet has a U.S. Military National insignia called the Roundel. The Roundel is on both shoulders as well. On the right side of Navy’s helmets is a depiction on an actual F/A-18 Super Hornet Fighter Jet with the theme “Fly Navy.” The Army Black Knights aren’t taking this standing still, as they will be wearing a newly released Special Forces uniform from the 5th Special Forces Group. You’ll have to watch the game to see these new uniforms. But, just like a flashy Labrador Retriever, the big question always is, “Can that dog hunt?” I guarantee the Army can hunt and predict another Black Knight victory over the Midshipmen.

Remember to tune in early to see the combined Army Navy Choir sing the National Anthem as you’ve never heard it sung and at the end of the game, stay tuned as each academy sings its school song. The school singing last is the winner. Go Army! Beat Navy!

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Amendment A

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 20:43:03 GMT

The Supreme Court's Decision

Greetings! The State Supreme Court struck down Constitutional Amendment A. Yep! It’s final. The State Supreme Court ruled that Constitutional Amendment A was unconstitutional. This amendment would have legalized marijuana use in South Dakota.

So, what happened? Well, in Constitutional Amendment A there were 3 subjects: medical marijuana, recreational marijuana, and hemp. The Supreme Court, using my layman’s terms, not hard evidence, decided that those 3 items were 3 different subjects. Why was that important?

Well, way back in 2018, we passed Amendment Z which dealt with ballot measures needing to be only one subject. The argument for Constitutional Amendment A was that all three components, medical marijuana, recreational marijuana, and hemp were all about cannabis; so, that justified it as a single subject.

Constitutional Amendment A passed on our ballot Nov. 3, 2020, with 54-46% approval. In contrast, Initiated Measure 26 (medical marijuana) passed with 76-24% approval.

My view on the spread between the 54% and 76% is this. Constitutional Amendment A had three factions of voters – the hemp voters, the medical marijuana voters and the recreational marijuana voters. IM-26 was “stand alone” with medical marijuana being the single subject. It was as bureaucratic as it possibly could be with font a size so small, we couldn’t even read it with the naked eye AND it had 95 sections in it! Nevertheless 76% of the voters thought it was ok to legalize medical marijuana.

This past session we passed legislation making the font size readable, basically the size of the font in a newspaper, and increased the threshold to pass a ballot measure from 50 plus one to 60%.

Bottom line, medical marijuana is legal with your doctor’s approval. Growing hemp is legal, as it was passed in the legislature in 2020. It shouldn’t have been on the ballot again in the first place. Recreational marijuana is NOT legal in South Dakota. So, what happens next?

We could, in the upcoming legislative session starting January 11, 2022, pass recreational marijuana. We could do nothing in the legislature and see what pops up on the ballot in the next General Election scheduled for November 2, 2022.

In the Marijuana Summer Study, we heard testimony from a state senator from Colorado. Colorado legalized marijuana in November of 2012. His recommendation to us was not to put marijuana into our State Constitution. Once that happens, it takes another Constitutional Amendment to change anything. His recommendation was to have it approved by the Legislature or through an Initiated Measure, so that it wasn’t in the State Constitution. That, of course, is IF we as a state want to legalize recreational marijuana.

I am alarmed that law enforcement isn’t arresting anyone with less than 3 ounces of marijuana. I think everyone knows I’ve never even had a tobacco cigarette, and no, haven’t ever smoked a joint. So, my research tells me there are 60-80 joints (marijuana cigarettes) in one ounce of marijuana. So, that means you could have, using the lower number of 60 joints per oz, 180 joints and not be arrested.

I have visited several times with Pennington County Sheriff Kevin Thom and he assures me that once this reading from the Supreme Court came down that they are going to rethink the 3 oz or less rule. I haven’t visited with the other two sheriffs in my district (Robert Evans in Fall River and Marty Mechaley in Custer) but plan on seeing them this week. I also plan on getting the opinions of the 3 State Attorneys in my district: Mark Vargo in Pennington, Tracy Kelley in Custer, and Lance Russel in Fall River.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Redistricting

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 20:43:02 GMT

and Happy Thanksgiving!

Greetings! Let’s start off with a Happy Thanksgiving to all. We truly live in the greatest country on Earth and we all have a lot to be thankful for.

Last week we talked about redistricting and now that it is final, you probably want to know what legislative district you live in. There’s no chance of figuring it out! Just teasing.

I envy district 31 as it encompasses Lawrence County. Yep, that’s it. Lawrence County has the right population to fall within the 25,333 with the plus or minus 5% criteria. So, if you live in Lawrence County (Lead, Deadwood, Spearfish), you’re in District 31.

In our district (30), if you live in Fall River or Custer Counties nothing has changed. However, if you live in Pennington County south of the Interstate from New Underwood to Wyoming, chances are that you’re also in District 30. As mentioned last week, we lost the 3 eastern precincts of New Underwood, Wasta and Wall to District 27. So, to make up for that loss, District 30 picked up the Green Valley area of Rapid City. But it’s not in the city. Boy does that make a lot of sense. That area is not annexed into Rapid City proper. Clear as mud?

Now, going into Rapid City, the boundaries have changed. They are even more confusing in Pennington County. Partly, they go from west to east (Districts 30, 33, 34, 32, 35, 30). I know, not sequentially, and remember that District 31 is Lawrence County. North of Rapid City and east of District 31 is District 29 which encompasses most of Meade County. Only Districts 34 and 32 are entirely in Rapid City’s limits.

So, who is your legislator? For 2022 it remains the same. Nothing changes until after the next election.

Let’s take a shot at making it easy to understand. The military part of me thinks that I have to list things in order. I have no idea why we didn’t get the number of districts changed using that format. Here it goes.

District 30: Fall River, Custer, and rural Pennington

Senator Frye-Mueller, Representatives Trish Ladner and Tim Goodwin

District 31: Lawrence County

Senator Tim Johns, Representatives Mary Fitzgerald and Scott Odenbach

District 32: Between Districts 34 and 35 in Rapid City

Senator Helene Duhamel, Representatives Becky Drury and Chris Johnson

District 33: the city of Rapid City and west Rapid City and north Rapid City going into Meade County

Senator Dave Johnson, Representatives Taffy Howard and Phil Jensen

District 34: east of district from 33, mostly western portion of Rapid City

Senator Mike Diedrich, Representatives Mike Derby and Jess Olson

District 35: east Rapid including Rapid Valley

Senator Jessica Castleberry, Representatives Tina Mulally and Tony Randolph

So, to recap, in Pennington County it goes west to east Districts 30,33, 34, 32, 35, 30. Remember, the missing district number is District 31, Lawrence County, and District 29 is mostly Meade County.

Of course, it is all on the World Wide Web at a number of locations. I suggest just typing in South Dakota Redistricting Map.

Again, I wish you all a very special and blessed Thanksgiving. We truly have a lot to be thankful for! “Under God the People Rule.”

To the citizens of South Dakota and to the men and women in uniform, in honor of all who served, in respectful memory of all who fell, and in great appreciation to those who serve today, Thank you, for giving me the opportunity to represent you.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

A busy week in Pierre!

Tue, 16 Nov 2021 19:42:06 GMT

Redistricting and Impeachment Proceedings

Greetings! I had a busy week this past week. I went to Pierre on Sunday to caucus that evening where we went over what we were going to be doing the next 3 days in our Special Session. The two subjects we were called into Pierre for were Redistricting and Attorney General Impeachment.

Let’s cover Attorney General Impeachment first. In the House, we set up a committee consisting of House members who were attorneys or in law enforcement. This committee will meet, look at all the evidence and subpoena any additional evidence it deems is needed. That’s where we left it; in the hands of the committee to look at all the evidence and then make a recommendation to the rest of the body. Once that happens, we will see what happens next.

We are breaking new ground here because we haven’t had impeachment proceedings for a Constitutional Officer since state inception on November 2nd, 1889. FYI, our Constitutional Officers are all voted in by the people. They work only for the citizens of South Dakota. They include Governor Kristi Noem, Lt. Governor Larry Rhoden, Secretary of State Steve Barnett, Attorney General Jason Rovnsberg, Treasurer Josh Haeder, Auditor Rich Sattgast, School and Public Lands Commissioner Ryan Brunner, Public Utilities Commissioners Kristie Fiegen, Gary Hanson and Chris Nelson. The only way to fire a Constitutional Officer is at the ballot box or by impeachment. That’s where we are at now.

I have full confidence in the Impeachment Committee and in the 70 Representatives in the House body to give a fair and impartial hearing and then decide by up or down vote whether to impeach or not.

The next item, (Can you tell I’m stalling?) is Redistricting. I think redistricting is a bigger deal to us legislators than it is to the public. I can remember that not so many years ago a legislator would ask me what district I was in, and I didn’t know. They would then ask where I voted (Keystone) or who my legislators were. (At that time they were Verchio, Russell, and Rampleberg.) Then the legislator would get a puzzled look on their face and say they thought I was in District 30. See! They didn’t even know for sure!

Before we left for Special Session, Rep. Trish Ladner and I attended a cracker-barrel in Wall, SD. The reason for the cracker-barrel was to discuss the two proposed maps that were out via internet. The proposed maps of the state for our district left Fall River and Custer counties untouched but in rural Pennington County both the Senate map (Blackbird) and the House map (Grouse) chopped off the eastern voting precincts. That included the towns of New Underwood, Wasta and Wall.

The cracker-barrel was very well attended and we had great discussion. Finally, I asked the crowd, “What do you want Rep. Ladner and I to do once we get to Pierre?” They all agreed that we should fight to keep these 3 precincts in District 30, but if that wasn’t possible, they were willing to be moved to District 27. They also advised us to do our job and get redistricting done; not to shirk our duties and send it to the State Supreme Court. The legislature had until Dec. 1st, 2021 to do our job with redistricting or the task would be sent to the State Supreme Court. The court then would have had until March 1st, 2022 to accomplish this task.

So, what happened? With 3 long days and much gnashing of teeth, the House approved a compromise map made of Blackbird and Grouse named Sparrow. I voted yes, and this passed in the House by, if I remember right, 37 to 31 in favor of the Sparrow compromise; overwhelmingly passed the Senate, and was signed into law by Gov. Noem. Yes, sadly, the 3 eastern Pennington County precincts went to District 27. I will miss representing those three precincts.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Veteran's Day 2021

Thu, 11 Nov 2021 22:59:50 GMT

To all Veterans who have served our country

To all veterans who have served this great country, I want to say I sincerely thank you for your great sacrifice and service to this great country. When you took your oath of office, whether as enlisted or as a commissioned officer, you wrote a blank check to the U.S. government for the amount of and including your own life in defense of this great nation. I feel honored to be part of the brother and sisterhood of such great American heroes.

Regardless of the recent events of this past year, the patriotic spirit has spread to Americans of all ages. Recent events have made us realize what we have as Americans and the freedoms we enjoy.

Veterans are not Republicans nor Democrats nor Independents. Veterans are Americans when in service to this country. Currently serving servicemen can’t run in partisan political races, nor should they ever be allowed. In this great constitutional republic, we serve at the pleasure of our civilian leadership. The top dog, of course, is our Commander in Chief, also known as our President. Regardless if we like, or agree with or do not, our Commander in Chief, we are all taught that we respect the position, not necessarily the person in that position.

I say that because I just want to make clear to our brave Afghan veterans who answered the call to be deployed these past 20 years that the abrupt ending was not your call or in any way your fault. In the past 20 years that you and our Iraqi veterans served in harm’s way on foreign soil, not one, I repeat that during that time frame, not one terrorist attack occurred in this country on United States soil. Pretty phenomenal when you think about it! All of us citizens owe you a debt of gratitude as well as a huge debt of gratitude to all veterans of all wars.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

What's Going On in the Legislature?

tgoodwin@gmail.com (Tim Goodwin) — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 17:25:21 GMT

Redistricting and AG Impeachment

Greetings! The familiar question I’ve been asked is, “What’s going on in the legislature?” As I’ve written before, we’re going for Special Session next week starting on Nov. 7th and going through Nov. 9th. The subjects we are taking up are Redistricting and Attorney General impeachment hearings.

What we are not doing is taking up vaccine mandates. I say that as my email has a lot of requests demanding a Special Session regarding vaccine mandates. All other legislation, including vaccine mandates, must wait until we convene for regular session starting January 11, 2022.

I’ve explained before, but because we have 24-hour news channels that deal with national news, some of the public get confused about our state’s legislature. All 105 of us, 70 in the House and 35 in the Senate, are citizen legislators who serve part-time, going to Pierre for around 40 days each year. What’s good about this is that the remainder of the year we come back home, living in our communities with our friends and neighbors, suffering (Oops! I mean enjoying) the laws we passed.

The hot topic I’m hearing about is redistricting and what it entails. I wrote about redistricting on Aug. 25, 2021, but probably should have waited until our Special Session was closer like it is now. Here it goes again, with updates. Every 10 years, the last being 2020, our nation does a census of the citizens of this great country. The data gathered in the census has multiple uses, one being the 35 legislative districts within our state’s borders.

Each district has two representatives and one senator. Because of population changes within these 35 districts, the legislature adjusts the boundaries. Each district is determined by population, not geographic area. For instance, the district I represent, District 30, covers the rural area of Pennington County (110 miles) and also Custer and Fall River Counties (80 miles deep).

Our state in 2010 had a population of 814,810 residents. It grew from 2010 to 2020 to 866,655 for a gain of 71,845. The two biggest gains were in Lincoln County where it went from 44,828 to 65,161 and Minnehaha County where it went from 169,468 to 197,214. Both of these counties capture the city of Sioux Falls, which has the number 1 on its license plates (Minnehaha) and the number 44 (Lincoln).

If we take our newest population of 866,655 and divide it by our 35 legislative districts, that equals 25,333. There is a deviation allowed of 5% plus or minus from the 25,333. So, the minimum population per district would be 24,067. The maximum population would be 26,599.

Locally, Pennington County grew from 100,948 to 109,222, a gain of 8,274. Custer County from 8,216 to 8,318, a gain of 102. Fall River County from 7,094 to 6,973, a loss of 121. In District 30, we have a combined population in Custer and Fall River Counties of 15,289. To hit the magic number, District 30 would need to pick up 10,444 from rural Pennington County. My wish is that District 30 stays the same.

Seems simple enough, right? Not so fast. Our redistricting committee(s) started as a joint committee with both House and Senate members. They then split up into two separate committees. I might add that this didn’t happen because things were going well. So, the Senate has their redistricting plan called Blackbird which has evolved with much input from a few of us and last I saw it, was called Blackbird 2.0. The House did similarly with their plan called Grouse (rhymes with House). There was another House plan called Hawk that came out and, last I’ve heard, they are going to be combined. You can look up these redistricting plans at several locations online, but I’d try sdredistrictingonline.org . If we don’t come up with an agreement, the redistricting moves over to our State Supreme Court to develop. Not my wish!!

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Special Session

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 12:44:05 GMT

Packing a lot Into a couple of days!

Greetings! Let’s start off with the announced Special Session for November 9th and 10th, 2021. There are two subjects for the Special Session. 1. Impeachment of our Attorney General and 2. Redistricting.

Let’s start with impeachment proceedings of our Attorney General (AG). The title is an oxymoron. We here in good old South Dakota are going to conduct impeachment proceedings of our number one law enforcement officer. Really?! Unbelievable but true. Let me back up to the scuttlebutt on divulging the House vote about whether we should proceed with impeachment proceedings. There is an uproar because the Speaker of the House just divulged that we received the necessary 2/3rds vote of the 70 House members. He decided not to divulge who voted for or against the proceedings. That is his prerogative. It came out like we were pulling a fast one, which is not the case.

I can only speak for myself, and I voted “yea” for the proceedings to take place. I have not decided how I’ll vote on the actual impeachment because I’m going to wait for the proceedings to occur and then make my decision.

I am concerned about having a time crunch trying to accomplish too much in just a two-day Special Session. I have no idea how long the impeachment proceedings will take, nor do I know how long the redistricting will take.

I do know that Veterans’ Day is November 11th and that I’m speaking at the Veterans’ Ceremony at the Little White Church at noon in Hill City. Don’t be fooled by the “little” in the name. It actually is quite large.

I say that in case anyone wants to extend Special Session. It would be unpatriotic and inappropriate to have Session on Veterans’ Day. I will do everything in my power to stop that from happening and if it does, I’ll be at the Little White Church at noon on Veterans’ Day even if we go all night on the 10th of November.

That reminds me. Marcia, make sure I have my speech done before leaving for Pierre on Nov. 8th!

Redistricting was put into a summer study committee with House and Senate members. My understanding is that the joint committee decided to split into two committees, one with just House members and one with Senators. This didn’t happen because they agreed on the redistricting formula. I mention that because this could be a time-consuming debate and will probably be moved to a “committee of 3” meaning three House members and three Senate members meeting to see if there is a compromise.

What we can not let happen is a deadlock because if that goes down, it goes to the State Supreme Court to draw up the 35 districts; at least that is my opinion. I think its better to be done in the legislature with elected House and Senate members rather than the State Supreme Court of which all members are appointed. Enough on that! Whew!

I have an Adult/Recreational Use summer study meeting on Tuesday October 19th with a full Marijuana Committee (both recreational and medicinal) meeting October 27th.

Doesn’t anyone know its hunting season?! FYI, I’ve enjoyed a great fall hunting season so far, harvesting many, many Canadian honkers as well as shooting many pheasants. I’ve been on several pheasant group hunts, and have 3 more scheduled, which are fun but what I enjoy most is just me and my chocolate lab Mocha trudging through tall grass and sloughs. Mocha is a pointing lab, meaning if the pheasant doesn’t run, which they do more often than not, she points with her nose and raises her right paw up and freezes in place waiting for me to catch up to her. This gives me a chance to get up to her, plant both feet, and then give Mocha the command, “get the bird.” She rushes forward and the pheasants burst into the air cackling and flapping their wings. If it is a rooster, I shoot it and she runs to retrieve it for me. It doesn’t get any better than that!

Before closing, I had an opportunity to tour the new arena called Summit Arena, which is in what is now called Monument (or the old Civic Center complex). Its unbelievably nice. It seats over 11,000. On Saturday, Oct. 23rd, there will be an open house, free of charge to the public. Do yourself a favor and tour the facility and then drop me a line saying what you thought.

I was teasing Craig Baltzer, the Executive Director, about booking the Rolling Stones. He gave me that look like that would be great, but almost impossible as they play at much bigger venues like football and baseball stadiums. So, if anyone out there knows Mick Jagger, please promote a concert at the Summit.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Let's Talk ...

tgoodwin@gmail.com (Tim Goodwin) — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 19:43:32 GMT

About Governor Noem

Greetings. Let’s talk about our governor, Kristi Noem. When Fox & Friends was at Peggy’s Place in Keystone this summer, Lawrence Jones, the Fox News Commentator, remarked that Gov. Noem was so liked and appreciated by the citizens that were there that morning, that many just referred to her as “Kristi”. Gov. Noem encouraged that showing she is truly one of us. She just happens to be governor. All summer and still now, the tourists who are still saturating the Black Hills rave about our governor. They know her name and make comments like, “I wish she was our governor,” or, “We are seriously thinking of relocating to South Dakota because of Gov. Noem.”

I think I’m pretty astute, but as far as knowing governors in other states, I probably can name only 5 or 6 of them. That’s what’s amazing to me; just how popular she is across the nation; that they all know her name. Gov. Noem, (the military bearing in me just can’t call her Kristi), has done more for promoting our state than any governor before her. She fights every day to make South Dakota a better place to live and is always sticking up for us against the massive overreach by the federal government.

That being said, I can’t believe or understand the constant bombardment she is under almost on a daily basis. Let’s use the cliché a famous radio announcer used on one of his radio programs called, “The rest of the story.” Here goes. The liberal media couldn’t wait to pounce on her, crying nepotism when Gov. Noem stepped in on an injustice to her daughter. Let’s dig a little deeper and see what we come up with.

Kassidy (Noem) Peters was trying to get an appraiser license. All the information I’ve seen shows that she had met all the criteria to be a licensed SD appraiser, but the bureaucracy in Pierre kept denying her application. Gov. Noem dug into this incident, only to find out that her daughter wasn’t an isolated incident, and that there were many others in Kassidy’s situation. It also came out that there is a severe shortage of appraisers in South Dakota and nationwide.

A realtor in Pierre stated that there were only 3 appraisers in the Pierre area causing potential new homeowners having to wait two months or longer to close on their homes. Another appraiser in the Mitchell area said that it can take anywhere from 60 to 160 days to get an appraisal ordered. The problem this creates is if you are financing your home, and over 90% of homebuyers finance their home purchase, nothing can go forward toward closing until the appraisal is done. In other words, banks aren’t granting a home loan until they know the home is worth what the potential buyers are paying. Make sense?

So, after the governor uncovered this serious problem with getting appraisals, she ordered the Dept. of Labor Sec. to streamline this process, making appraisal licensing fairer and cutting down the timeline to get appraiser licenses. Basically, she had that department streamline the appraiser certification process.

In getting this done, it appears there was a lower-level state employee who wasn’t buying into this initiative and basically was “the problem” in getting this process straightened out. Somewhere along the line, this state employee filed an age discrimination suit against the state. The state settled her suit by agreeing to pay her $200K to drop the suit and go into retirement. This employee was 70 years old. Really old, huh? Easy does it, as I’m only 4 years away. LOL!

My initial outburst was, “Why pay $200K of taxpayer money, or in other words, a golden parachute for someone going into retirement, who is going to be compensated by receiving one of the best retirement plans in the country, that being the South Dakota Retirement System?” Checking further, I was informed that the state has insurance that covers these frivolous suits and that they aren’t that uncommon.

So, bottom line, where in the world does nepotism fit in here? Actually, Kassidy caused a problem to surface that was hurting the ability to obtain home ownership, and she, through the governor’s prodding, has drastically sped up the appraisal process. So, there you have it: the old Paul Harvey saying, “…the rest of the story.”

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

What's Going On In The House ...

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 22:59:34 GMT

Continued

Greetings! Last week we ended with the problems with constitutional amendments. Because, like Amendment A, they put the changes in the state constitution, if changes need to be made, they can only be made in future constitutional amendments during future elections. In our state, that would be every two years. One more time I’m going to express that I feel the last time (Nov. 2020), having medical marijuana on the ballot twice was just plain wrong. Here it goes again. If you voted in the November 2020 election, you could have voted for or against medical marijuana two times. Once in IM-26 and again when it was wrapped with recreational marijuana and hemp in Constitutional Amendment A. Now, how in the world can something like that occur?

Also, it was wrong that IM-26 had about 95 sections to it with font so small you needed a magnifying glass to read it in the voting booth. We did pass legislation last session making font size larger, the size of newspaper print, so at least we can read the measures we’re voting on.

Also, going back to Constitutional Amendment A, hemp was on the ballot even though we made growing hemp legal the session before the 2020 general election. To recap: how could medical marijuana be on the ballot twice and how could hemp be on the ballot when it was already legal in South Dakota?

I brought this up several times before the past General Election in November 2020. It seemed to me the Secretary of State pointed at the Attorney General who pointed at the Secretary of State and everyone essentially just yawned. This is very important because we are implementing IM-26 and honoring what the electorate voted for.

I am very concerned about the Flandreau Indian Reservation selling medical marijuana starting July 1st, 2021 and areas outside of the reservation waiting for the state rules to be implemented this month. It’s only a matter of time until the other 8 Indian reservations follow Flandreau’s Santee Sioux Tribe and do their own thing, regardless of the implemented state rules. Today you can go to the dispensary at the Flandreau Indian Reservation and purchase medical marijuana. All you need is a letter from your doctor stating that it will help some ailment from which you are suffering. Remember, a doctor can’t tell if you are in pain. If you say you have neck or back pain, he or she cannot say you don’t.

At the Flandreau dispensary you don’t have to be a tribal member to purchase medical marijuana, and all residents of other states have reciprocity. If anyone disputes my claim, that’s exactly what I was told during my site visit on July 6, 2021. So, by implementing medical marijuana, are we legalizing recreational marijuana as well?

Changing subjects, the members of our body, the House of Representatives, have given the nod with the needed 2/3rds vote (47) to go forward with impeachment proceedings of our Attorney General. When we go to Pierre for our already scheduled Special Session on redistricting on November 8, we will also discuss impeachment. Obviously, much more to come.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

What’s going on in the legislature?

tgoodwin@gmail.com (Tim Goodwin) — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 18:05:48 GMT

Let’s break it down just a little

I get asked a question all the time. “Hey Tim! What’s going on in the legislature?” Well, I pause and think to the previous 5 years I’ve served, when my answer was something like, “Not much. We are working on some bills that will make South Dakota a better place to live and Session doesn’t start until the second Tuesday in January.” Now, this year, I’m kind of stumped on my answer, like when you say, “How are you doing?” and one regurgitates their life story, including their many medical ailments. The answer to, “How are you doing?” is, “Fine, and you?” even if you’re not, right? The same with, “What’s going on in the legislature?” The seemingly correct answer is, “Not much.”

Let’s deviate and start over by being truthful because this session could be one for the ages. “What’s going on in the legislature?” Here it goes. I’ve been busy on summer study committees, Work Force Housing (WFH) along with the Marijuana (MJ) Summer Study for both medical MJ and recreational (adult use) MJ. I/we also voted yesterday on having a Special Session in the House to start impeachment proceedings on our Attorney General (or AG). We already have a Special Session scheduled for November 8th and 9th regarding redistricting and we’ve found out that Gov. Noem is going to give an address to the Legislature regarding her budgetary priorities during that Special Session. Other than that, we are all working on constituent bills, trying to make South Dakota a better place to live than it is already. Whew! No one wants that reply, but that’s the truthful answer.

Let’s break it down just a little, not diving too deep into each one of those items. Ready?

Work Force Housing (WFH). Every citizen knows there are Help Wanted signs everywhere and our businesses are being held back due to not enough workers. The situation is not going to improve until we get more affordable living accommodations. Our WFH committee is in the process of concluding our meetings and hearings and hopefully draft some meaningful legislation. Remember, the conservative estimate is that we are 10,000 homes/apartments short in our state. I’ll report more when we get our draft done on WFH.

Next, Marijuana (MJ). Let’s start with recreational MJ. No decision by our State Supreme Court about whether Constitutional Amendment A is upheld or not. The lower court has declared Amendment A unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court has concluded hearings. It is just a waiting game now.

Our committee heard testimony and traveled to a lot of different locations gathering as much information as we could. Basically, we are at a fork in the road. If we take the left fork, do we go ahead and legalize MJ? If we take the right fork, do we just mark time and wait for the Supreme Court to decide?

A couple of compelling testimonials that stick in my mind were that 1) South Dakota has one of the biggest black markets for MJ, as it’s readily available, even though not legal. Law enforcement is giving it a blind eye for less than 3 oz. of MJ. 2) This came from a State Senator in Colorado. His advice was that whatever we do, don’t legalize MJ in your constitution. That’s exactly what happens when its in the form of a Constitutional Amendment. Making changes to it then can only be done through more constitutional amendments in future elections.

I’m almost up to my 700-word limit! Sorry but medical MJ, Impeachment, Redistricting, and 2022 legislation will have to wait until next week.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Not Sure Where to Begin!

tgoodwin@gmail.com (Tim Goodwin) — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 04:03:33 GMT

The 20th Anniversary of 9/11

Greetings! Well, I’m not sure where to begin. This past week marked the 20th anniversary of our country being attacked on 9-11-2001. Anyone from school age on can remember that day vividly. The other day that sticks in my memory was when John Kennedy was assassinated. Both events so tragic they stay with us for a lifetime. Another image seared into my brain is the news clip of 2-star Major General Chris Donahue walking up the ramp of an aircraft, being the last man to leave Afghanistan.

Major General Donahue is the 82nd Airborne Division Commander. This image has a particularly strong meaning to me as I enlisted out of high school to be a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This division is made up of approximately 16,000 paratroopers who are on alert to jump in (parachute in) to any place in the world in less than 24 hours’ notice. It was truly an honor and a privilege to be one of the All-Americans with the 82nd.

I have a joke I enjoy saying that when I enlisted, I was 6 foot 5 inches tall and when I came out after three years of jumps/landings, I was 5 foot 6 inches tall. It always gets a good laugh and works as an ice breaker when I’m speaking.

I just want to make clear that it is not the military’s fault; that they were ordered by the Commander In Chief, President Biden, to pull out of Afghanistan. Pull out?? Hell, it was a surrender! Has any army or, in this case, a military force, as all branches were deployed, ever surrendered when they had full control of the country? I think not. To the brave military members who served in Afghanistan and Iraq in the past 20 years, let me be clear: You did your job fighting on foreign soil so we could be free the past 20 years. Not a single terrorist attack happened in the 20-year time span. All of us citizens owe a debt of gratitude to you for your selfless service to this great country. Thank you.

Now, let’s talk about something else super patriotic, shall we? Shortly after Gov. Noem took office, she initiated a program called the Fallen Heroes Bridge Dedication Program. This program dedicates state bridges within our borders to those service members who fought and died, giving the ultimate sacrifice to this country. South Dakota has more than 3000 killed or missing in action heroes.

On Saturday, 9-11-2021, I had the privilege of accompanying our Lt. Governor Larry Rhoden to Thunder Hawk, South Dakota to dedicate a bridge located on the North Dakota border and Highway 73. The two fallen heroes were 1st Lt. Herbert Lyman, who was shot down and killed while piloting a P-51 Mustang over France on June 17, 1944, and his brother, Tech Sergeant James Lyman, who was killed in action (KIA) in Italy on March 16, 1945. Each of these heroes received a purple heart medal and T. Sgt. Lyman also received a silver star for uncommon valor in battle.

In addition to Lt. Governor Rhoden, Chief Warrant Officer Halsey Hall was there representing the South Dakota National Guard. Both of these gentlemen gave remarks along with our State Veteran Field Service Officer Will Huffmon. Representing the family were two nieces of the fallen heroes. One niece, Addie Holm, lives in, and has been a long-time resident of, Custer, South Dakota. It was really nice being all the way up by the North Dakota border and seeing on the agenda Addie addressing the crowd. Her main point was how important this bridge dedication was to the Lyman family and, as she said it, finally bringing closure.

To nominate a fallen hero, please go to https://veterans.sd.gov/resources/fallen%20heroes%bridges%20dedications/bridges%20heroes.aspx

I know, an unbelievably long web site address, but in there you can pull up an application form to submit for your fallen hero. Remember they had to have made the ultimate sacrifice to our great country or be missing in action.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Will there be a special session?

Thu, 02 Sep 2021 13:19:51 GMT

“Representative Goodwin, please call for a special session to discuss Covid-19 vaccine mandates.” All of us in the Legislature, 70 in the House and 35 in the Senate, are receiving many, many of these types of emails.

We are citizen legislators, meaning we only meet for 40 days or less starting the 2nd Tuesday in January. The next Legislative Session is from Tuesday, January 11, 2022, through March 10, 2022. We will have a 38-day session. Veto Day, reserved for consideration of gubernatorial vetoes, is set for March 28, 2022. During Session, we usually have a 4-day week and then 3 days for travel home to visit with constituents. In western South Dakota we have “cracker barrels” to give us a chance to gather and answer questions from our constituents.

Where am I going with this? It is very difficult to call a Special Session. Why? Because all 105 of us are citizen legislators, meaning that the legislature is not our full-time job. We have careers, family, and a personal life just like everyone else does. It is kind of cool that we meet for 10 weeks in Pierre and then return home to live with our friends and neighbors, living with the laws we passed. There is an old saying, “You’re safe now, as the Legislature is not in session!” There is some truth to that, meaning we can’t raise taxes or implement more fees if we’re not in Pierre.

So, what does it take to call a Special Session? There are two avenues to do this. First, the Governor has the power to call for a Special Session. Second, the Legislature also has the power to call for a Special Session. It takes 2/3rds vote from each body, the House (47 yeas) and the Senate (24 yeas), to make a Special Session happen. If a Special Session does not get called, all legislation must wait until the next Legislative Session takes place. Does this make sense?

Getting back to my lead-in, the many requests to have a Special Session dealing with COVID-19 mandates, to do this, 47 House members and 24 Senate members would have to agree OR the Governor would have to call for it.

We already have a Special Session declared for redistricting legislative districts. This is scheduled for November 8 and 9 at our chambers in Pierre. (Dang! I know those dates are going to interfere with duck hunting!!)

I am not against a Special Session regarding COVID-19 mandates. Representative Hansen and Representative Odenbach have drafted House Bill 55 that is intended for a Special Session if there are 47 House members who agree to stop everything for this Special Session. My understanding, and I could be wrong, is the Senate and Governor are against this session. Of course, agreeing to a Special Session does not mean, or obligate one to vote for, the bill the session was called for. In this case House Bill 55.

On a volunteer basis, we have several committees that meet during the off times of the Legislature being in session. I, as one example, am on Work Force Housing interim committee and the Adult Use Marijuana Study subcommittee and attend the Medical Marijuana Study subcommittee. Also from District 30, Trish Ladner is on the Executive Council. All legislators are welcome to attend any of the committees. This public is invited to attend any hearings, as they are open to the public and can be listened to via Zoom.

To make everything clear, the only Special Session scheduled currently is on November 8 and 9 of this year. In last week’s article I wrote about this subject.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Redistricting Update

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:42:16 GMT

Greetings!
My title of the article I was going to write was, “If Joe Biden was going to destroy this country, would he do anything differently?” But Marcia asked that I please not write any more controversial stuff for a while. So, let’s talk about redistricting, shall we? After the census is completed every ten years, all legislative districts need to be looked at to see that all citizens have an equal voice with the updated populations of each district. District 30 is one of the geographically larger districts, (it is approximately 100 miles wide west to east and 80 miles long north to south). Basically, it is from County Line 14 east of Wall to the Wyoming border and the underside of Pennington County south of Rapid City to the Nebraska border. In South Dakota we have 35 legislative districts. They are drawn up by population, not geographic size. In Rapid City, the west side going up into the Hills is District 33, with Districts 34 and 32 in Rapid City proper and District 35 going east encompassing the fastest-growing city west river, that being Box Elder. The Box Elder people tell me it has passed Spearfish in population. South Dakota grew, for the census period of 2010-2020, from 814,810 in 2010 to 886,655 in 2020; 71,845 people. If we divide 886,655 by the 35 districts that would be 25,333 per district. There is a plus or minus of 5% allowed, so the figures are 24,066 to 26,600 per district. In District 30, Fall River County went from 7094 to 6973, or a loss of 121 people. Custer County went from 8216 to 8318 for a gain of 102 people. Pennington County went from a population of 100,948 to 109,222 for a gain of 8274. Therefore, the Fall River population of 6973 plus Custer County population of 8318 equals 15,289. To hit the magic number of 25,333 we would need to pick up 10,044 from the rural portion of Pennington County. So, probably little if any change in our district. Remember, this was 2010-2020. The gains in the next 10 years (2020-2030) probably will be significantly higher. It would be interesting to know what the gains are so far. Minnehaha County went from 169,468 in 2010 to 197,214 in 2020. Lincoln County went from 44,828 to 65,161. Both counties capture the city of Sioux Falls. So, combining Minnehaha plus Lincoln, they have a combined population growth of 48,079; with the sweet spot of 25,333, that’s just about two additional legislative districts. My guess is that there is little appetite to add any more districts, so we will stretch the central parts of South Dakota to have as close as possible to 25,333 per district. When does this happen? We are scheduled to have a Special Session in Pierre on November 8 and 9 to hash this out. There is a Redistricting Committee drawing up the draft. If we can’t come to an agreement during the Special Session, it then goes to our State Supreme Court to draw up the districts. You remember the State Supreme Court that has taken “forever” to make a ruling on Constitutional Amendment A. Yes, that group would draw up the 35 legislative districts. It obviously behooves the Legislature to do our due diligence and come to an agreement instead of shirking our responsibility and letting the State Supreme Court decide. To the citizens of South Dakota and to the men and women in uniform, in honor of all who served, in respectful memory of all who fell, and in great appreciation to those who serve today, Thank You, for giving me the opportunity to represent you. Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Are you ready for a good news story?

Wed, 04 Aug 2021 21:31:57 GMT

A solution to fix Shep’s Canyon Road.

Greetings! Are you ready for a good news story? I know I sure am!! So, what’s the good news? Well, the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks (GF&P), along with the Fall River County Commissioners have come up with a solution fixing Shep’s Canyon Road.

As you might remember, your 3 legislators, Trish, Julie and myself, with the support of many Fall River County residents took the Shep’s Canyon Road issue to the legislature last winter. First, here is some back story on the issue. It is located 7 miles south of Hot Springs on Highway 71. There Shep’s Canyon Road goes east 7 miles to Angostura Lake.

With any legislation, we should be trying to fix a problem. The problem we were trying to fix was the high traffic volume on this county gravel road. There are housing units that finger off of Shep’s Canyon Road. They include “Angostura Island”, 19 homes, Winter Edge Development with 25 homes, plus a couple of other smaller developments. The homeowners use this road to get in and out of their place up to Hwy. 71. That alone isn’t the problem. The problem is, and it is a good news problem, our GF&P has done a tremendous job building recreation areas along and at the end of Shep’s Canyon Road. They include a 28 unit campground, two boat launches with docks, a very large game production area that is great for pheasant hunting (Sorry Robin Lecy. I was supposed to keep that quiet.), a trailer park with 70 units, a lodge and a no fee tent camping area plus a horse campground! With all that, you can see the amount of traffic the road gets, especially in tourist season/summertime. Just the boat docks create massive traffic getting boats on trailers in and out of Lake Angostura.

Just a plug for Lake Angostura: It has 36 miles of beach and some of the finest sandy beaches in the state; a big attraction for us fishermen. It is one of two Black Hills lakes that have a large supply of the best eating fish in the world, that being walleye. But I digress.

Back on point: We had legislation drawn up to have the state fund fixing Shep’s Canyon Road. The bill was HB-1170 “an act to appropriate funds to pave Shep’s Canyon Road located in Fall River County.” The bill was initiated in the House of Representatives with Rep. Ladner being the Prime Sponsor, Julie and I being co-sponsors.

The cool thing about our legislature is every bill gets a hearing. Yep, every single one. So, HB-1170 went to our House Transportation Committee fora hearing. Several Fall River County residents made the trek to Pierre to testify on the merit of House bill 1170. We had a fair hearing with much discussion, but in the end the bill failed 8 to 5. Actually, it was sent to the 41st day. By law, we can only have session for 40 days.

So, where is the good news? Rep. Ladner and I met with the Dept. of Transportation headed by Secretary Joel Jundt, and the Game, Fish and Parks headed by Secretary Kevin Robling and the Parks Director Scott Simpson. (There were other personnel in the meeting as well.) The end result was that they understood our problem and wanted to help us. We left the meeting understanding that we were going to bring legislation to fix Shep’s Canyon Road, but if that failed, we really, really needed their support.

So, here’s the good news. Our Game, Fish and Parks Department has agreed to pay half of the $500K needed to fix the road AND the Fall River County Commissioners voted to pay the other $250K!! I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the Fall River Highway Superintendent was also a pit bull on wanting to get this done.

The road will be paved using a newer substance call Base One which can be described as a mixture of gravel and asphalt millings. This also includes loading and hauling 14,000 tons of millings from Simon’s Pit at Maverick Junction. So, there you have it; a true success story with all levels of government getting together and coming up with a solution!

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

The Dog Days of Summer!

Mon, 26 Jul 2021 20:40:41 GMT

Two questions I keep getting asked ...

Greetings! We’re going into the dog days of summer. This and 90 plus every day is hard on all of us. At least up in the hills it cools off every night and we don’t have the humidity like east river. Of course, east river needs that humidity to grow corn and soybeans. I had to make a trip to east river and was amazed at how good the corn and soybean crops looked. Praise the Lord!

Two questions that I keep getting asked are, #1 What ever happened to Amendment A that was on the ballot November 3rd, 2020? And #2 What happened to our Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg (pronounced Rounsberg)?

Let’s mix it up and take question 2 first, shall we? I think everyone remembers the incident. I can’t imagine the stress on Jason Ravnsborg, and that’s why I wrote asking him to do the honorable thing and resign. I still believe that is what is best for the citizens of this great state. Also, even more noteworthy is the incredible pain and anguish the family and friends of Joe Boever, the victim, are going through. Our thoughts and prayers go out to ALL involved!

Having said that, the legislature is waiting for the results of his trial, scheduled supposedly in August this year. Pretty darn soon! Our AG is charged with illegal vehicle lane change, distracted driving, and careless driving. All 3 are Class 2 misdemeanors and carry separately a $500 fine and 30 days in jail if he is convicted. I say that because we all need to remember we are entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven otherwise. I think we all believe in that.

So then what? If our AG is convicted on any one of the charges, we in the legislature have the option of conducting impeachment proceedings. If we feel it is warranted, the House adopts articles of impeachment (like a criminal charge) and the Senate holds a trial and convicts. Part of a conviction includes, if felt necessary, removal from office. In the House, it takes a simple majority to impeach, so 36 votes; in the Senate it needs 2/3rds, so 24 votes.

Back to question #1, whatever happened to Amendment A? You know, the amendment that was on our ballot last November 3rd, 2020. That’s eight months ago! The lower court, that being the Circuit Court, has already ruled that Amendment A is unconstitutional because it carried, or I should say bundled, three subjects: medical marijuana, recreational marijuana, and hemp. What’s really bizarre is that hemp was passed and made legal by the legislature the previous year and medicinal marijuana was on the same ballot as IM-26 (Nov. 3, 2020). So, we had hemp on the ballot that was ALREADY legal, and medicinal marijuana on the ballot twice. Like I’ve said numerous times, WHERE IS THE QUALITY CONTROL when it comes to ballot measures? To keep with this question theme, I have a question, #3.

Why on Earth is it taking so long for our State Supreme Court to rule on Constitutional Amendment A? This makes no sense to me and I’m sure most South Dakota citizens agree!!

We were scheduled to have a Marijuana Committee meeting on Aug. 5th, but cancelled it awaiting the Supreme Court to do its job. Supposedly the State Supreme Court announces their rulings at 8am cent ral time on Thursdays each week. So, if you’re extremely bored, turn on your computers every Thursday at 8am and see if they have made their ruling regarding Amendment A.

To the citizens of South Dakota and to the men and women in uniform, in honor of all who served, in respectful memory of all who fell, and in great appreciation to those who serve today, Thank you, for giving me the opportunity to represent you.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Inflation Rises 5%

tgoodwin@gmail.com (Tim Goodwin) — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 19:48:30 GMT

Gas Price Increase almost 100%!!

Greetings! I have a lot going on here in my scattered thoughts. With all the talk about inflation going up 5%, I have issue with these economists’ modern math. If gas was $1.80 per gallon prior to Pres. Biden and its $3.55 now, that’s pretty near a 100% increase. Perhaps these economists are using common core math? Yes, I did pay $3.55 per gallon at a station in district 30!

Covid vaccinating. This is out of control! First, if someone has had Covid, they should be talking about checking antibodies. If you have sufficient antibodies, you don’t NEED the vaccine. If fact, if you get the vaccine, it can make you sick because you are injecting more antibodies into your body. Make sense? You’re actually overdosing your body if you will.

So why aren’t there antibody-testing stations every place checking this first, before giving the vaccine? Also noteworthy, you could be high in antibodies because you had Covid and didn’t know it! So, back to my original question. Why aren’t there antibody-checking stations every place? The answer: THERE IS NO MONEY IN IT!!

My opinion is that our government is in bed with big pharma, who are making obscene profits, instead of doing what is right and moral, that being looking out for the welfare of its citizens?

Another mystery is: why is that bio-germ facility still in existence in Wuhan, China? Its been proven that the communist Chinese have intentionally developed Covid-19 and exported it to the world, killing over 4 million people so far. Why are we still allowing this lab to be in existence? Unbelievable! Heck! They could export another strain of Covid. I’m not sure they haven’t already, and we sit back passively with our head in the sand and let this continue.

This is not only the Biden administration’s responsibility, as the Trump administration did nothing about it when in power. So, Pres. Biden, I don’t know who is advising you, but from this lowly state representative, give the order to wipe out that biogerm lab in Wuhan, China TODAY!

This is not war mongering on my behalf. We went into WWII and Iraq and Afghanistan with a fraction of the deaths caused by Covid-19. These deaths are the responsibility of the Chinese Communists. And for those of you that write regarding me of intentionally taking shots at the Chinese Communists, get over it. I have no problem with the Chinese people, just their dictatorship Communist government. Perhaps we should make Hunter Biden the Ambassador to China. Oops! Bad idea, as it i s proven he is in bed with the Communist Chinese! Boy! Am I on a roll now!

So, did all the parents of this great country, (and I say that sincerely, because this country is still the greatest place in the world,) did all you parents get direct deposits of $300 per child under 6 years old and $250 for children ages 6-18? Direct deposits were made July 15th. If you didn’t, don’t contact me, as this is a federally funded program. Contact Congressman Johnson, Senator Thune or Sen. Rounds. If you don’t have a bank account, the check is in the mail. Seriously.

Now, to back off of my sarcasm of this over-spending federal government. Remember, we are 27 trillion dollars and rising in debt. This is what they are doing instead of giving a child tax credit when filing your income tax. Instead of giving you $3600 per child under age 6 and $3000 per child aged 6-18, they are fronting you $300 and $250 per month up front. Just so everyone understands, they are using up your child tax deduction ahead of time instead of when you file your income tax. Might not be a bad idea other than why can’t the citizen decide about when to use this deduction instead of it being mandated by our federal government? I remember a quote from U.S. Senator Rand Paul: “We should never forget the Constitution wasn’t written to restrain citizen’s behavior. It was written to restrain the government’s behavior.”

To the citizens of South Dakota and to the men and women in uniform, in honor of all who served, in respectful memory of all who fell, and in great appreciation to those who serve today, Thank you, for giving me the opportunity to represent you.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Update on Marijuana Summer Study

tgoodwin@gmail.com (Tim Goodwin) — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 19:23:49 GMT

Group Visitsdispensary & laboratory

Greetings! On July 6th the Marijuana Summer Study toured the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe to visit their medicinal marijuana operation. Our group split into three separate groups going through in round robin; cultivation facility, dispensary and laboratory. The group I was in went to the dispensary first.

There was a waiting room where you turned in your paperwork through a window to check authenticity before you go into the dispensary in the next room. The paperwork needed was a letter from your doctor indicating you will benefit from medicinal marijuana for health reasons. Once your paperwork was stamped for approval, you moved into the dispensary.

In the dispensary I was more than surprised at how high tech the marijuana products were displayed. There were four glass-covered counters with every type of medical marijuana. By each one was a price marker. Also, behind these counters was an electronic board such as you’d see at a McDonald’s. Remember when you used to go inside at McDonald’s?

Anyway, the electronic board flashed types of medical marijuana with prices. This included several different types of marijuana cigarettes, or I guess they’re called joints. Each one is designed to do a different type of therapy to your body. Next were buds that you would crush and smoke in a pipe. There were little vials that you put into a device to vape.

Once a customer picked which medicinal products they wanted, there was a cashier who took payment and the customer was on their way. While we were there, customers were lined up to purchase products. This tribe started selling medicinal marijuana on July 1st, the date Initiated Measure 26 (IM-26) went into effect.

So, what happens if one of the medical marijuana customers is stopped by law enforcement on their way home? Good question. There have been a few different readings on this. The last one that I heard was that the Highway Patrol wasn’t going to arrest the driver if they possessed 3 ounces or less. How much is 3 ounces is not clear to me. Three cigarettes/joints? Three vials? How many buds equal less than 3 ozs? Once the medicinal marijuana-using patient gets home, he’s legal to use the product in his home.

I asked a couple of questions at this station. One was, “Do you have to be a tribal member to purchase products?” The answer was “no”. As long as they had a letter from their doctor, they could purchase products. I then asked, “What about people from Minnesota?” as Flandreau is close to the South Dakota/Minnesota border. The answer was that Minnesota has reciprocity, meaning they can purchase there as well. So, I then asked, “What states have reciprocity?” After much discussion, they thought all states did. Now, keep in mind that in most other states medicinal marijuana is already legal, so, not a big deal.

Next my group moved to the laboratory that was temporarily set up, as they were in the process of remodeling a large room into a state-of-the-art laboratory. Here we were briefed on how they developed different brands of medicinal marijuana. They all had names like “The Newly Weds” or “Cotton Candy”, etc. I was amazed at how many different remedies medical marijuana solved.

Next was the cultivation facility. This again was a state-of-the-art greenhouse growing various types of marijuana. The plants were in little 4”x4” by 4” high containers with no soil. It looks like a fiberglass material with a tiny hose that waters plants every 2 hours. The plants were on the huge tables that they said weighed 10,000 pounds each and were easily moved by one person.

My take here was that the guy who plans on growing in his closet or basement has little chance of competing with this large facility. I’d guess it could be equated to the person who makes his own beer or wine. It’s a fun hobby, but no competition to Budweiser or Prairie Berry.

So, where are we? Well, we are developing the rules and have 120 days from July 1st to have them in effect. How we develop those is yet to be determined and yet to be reported. Until next week.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Keystone Hits the Big Time!

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 12:25:58 GMT

Lawrence Jones From Fox & Friends Interviews Governor Noem

I hope everyone had a great Independence Day celebrating the birth of this great country, The United States of America. Whoa. Almost puts chills down your back, doesn’t it?!

Last week was a week for the ages, almost epic! What happened? Well, on July 1st, Fox and Friends , the TV show, came to little ole Peggy’s Place, a cool little restaurant in Keystone, SD. I arrived at Peggy’s Place around 3:15 am and the spot lights were already set up outside of the restaurant. Lawrence Jones, one of the program’s stars, was standing in front, off camera, talking to the home studio in New York City. I thought, “Boy! This is bigtime now!”

Of course Keystone is one of the coolest of all little towns in the Black Hills. Where else does a town of 300 residents draw 3 million tourists through the main drag on their way to Mt. Rushmore?

The owners of Peggy’s Place, Peggy and Dan Janecek, were great hosts and couldn’t have been more accommodating. The broadcast started at 4am MST as the morning show is running on eastern time (6am EST) and went until 7am MST (9am EST). Starting at 4am, Lawrence Jones worked the customers doing live segments throughout the 3-hour period. It was fascinating to watch!

At around 6:30 am Gov. Noem dropped by. She came from the capitol in Pierre. As always, she looked great! She told me she had a sleepless night as she was helping out with her new granddaughter, Addison, who was born this past week. Anyway, the cameras came on and our governor was in front of the nation taking questions from Lawrence Jones.

The main question was, “Why aren’t we having fireworks at Mount Rushmore this year?” Gov. Noem explained that we had been doing fireworks at Mount Rushmore up until the Obama administration and then they were shut down. Once elected governor, she sought help from then President Trump and we went through all the protocol with the Forest Service and ultimately had the great Independence Day celebration last year! (Marcia and I had the opportunity to attend and it was spectacular!)

Gov. Noem did everything within her power to again have a fireworks display this year, but was shut down by the Biden administration. What isn’t talked about is that we went through the Forest Service protocol checklist again this year, only to have it disapproved after precedence was set last year!! GRR

She even went so far as to invite the President and First Lady to attend. Reminds me of President Biden’s favorite phrase, “Come on man!” That, and that whispering like he’s telling a secret, into a microphone that’s live. It’s alarming to me.

The next question from Mr. Jones was about the South Dakota National Guard troops going to the border. This Gov. Noem explained with ease, stating that the governors from Texas and Arizona asked for law enforcement for security. She stated that because we have yet to have the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally; we need to keep our law enforcement officers in our state. She then tasked the Adjutant General of the state National Guard to ask for 50 volunteers to go to Texas for this security duty. Well, more than 50 of our finest, the citizen soldiers of our National Guard, volunteered! Remember, everyone in the National Guard is a volunteer, and these soldiers volunteered again, so they are double volunteers. Thank God for such great Americans.

It’s been reported that a private donor volunteered (man are we using that word a lot!) from Tennessee to pay the cost of sending our National Guard troops to Texas. I’ve gotten several emails saying because of this donor, our guard troops are now mercenaries. STOP!! Any citizen of this great country can give money to our state or national treasury. In fact, with the federal treasury being 27 trillion dollars in debt and rising, this should be looked at with praise, not as some anti-military movement.

A couple of tidbits. On July 1st, IM-26 went into effect, but the state has 120 days, or until Nov. 1st, to get the rules established. Our state website is set up to keep us abreast of the rules development. The web address is: medcannabis.sd.gov.

My youngest son, David, returned home from Africa after almost a year-long deployment with the National Guard on Thursday, July 1st. Yep, I left Peggy’s Place at 7am and made it to Sioux Falls for the deactivation ceremony at 2:30pm. It is great having him back. His second daughter was born while he was gone, on Nov. 11, 2020. At David’s ceremony she had on a t-shirt that read, “Welcome home Daddy. I’ve waited my whole life to meet you.” Now if that doesn’t make you about cry, nothing will. Until next week.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Home Dedication in Hot Springs, sD

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 19:36:39 GMT

Greetings! Still greener than green at our house; got two inches of rain the other night. We hope and pray this last moisture blast continues east across South Dakota.

I had the privilege to speak at the home dedication for Lacy Piazza of Hot Springs. This was a gratifying experience because Lacy got into a Governor’s House in conjunction with the Black Hills area Habitat for Humanity. As you probably know, the late great Gov. Janklow started the Governor’s House program. The Governor’s House program was created to get low-income families into affordable housing, while at the same time giving the prisoner at a minimum-security penitentiary a skill that they could use once they are released from prison. I was surprised and thankful that the Executive Director of South Dakota Housing Development Authority came from Pierre to the dedication. Yep, Lori Polak drove from Pierre for this great event and gave a short talk.

Also present was Hot Springs Mayor Bob Nelson, who also spoke. Thanks, Mayor! Scott Ergman from Rapid City is the Executive Director of the Black Hills Habitat for Humanity office. Another nice touch was all the local businesses who furnished the place with basic essentials all the way down to – yep – toilet paper.

Speaking of housing, Lori Polak XO of SDHDA also came before our Work Force Housing Committee in Pierre a couple of weeks ago. When asked about how many Governor’s Houses can be built by the prison each year, she answered 150. Well, 150 is great, but we are conservatively short 6500 homes in the state and probably closer to a 10,000 home-shortage figure. I asked what it would take to produce 1500 homes. Well, it wasn’t received well. Heck, let’s let the main penitentiary in Sioux Falls start constructing Governor’s Homes. Also, why don’t we do it with prisoners who come to Rapid City on good behavior work-release status? For that matter, what about the 800 prisoners housed in Pennington County Jail? All good questions.

Also, to be realistic in solving this severe housing shortage, we need to see about manufactured homes. What we used to call trailer houses. Today, they are made much better and are very energy efficient. They can be constructed rapidly in an assembly line. All these are just possibilities. Its time to quit talking and come up with answers to this severe work force housing issue. Until next week…

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

It's Officially Sumertime!

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 17:52:51 GMT

Greetings! It’s officially summertime, like we didn’t know by the unseasonable high temperatures. It’s still surprisingly very green in the Hills. I guess the wet spring snows and timely rains have made the difference. We did get hail the other night at 3:30 am in the morning; lots of it and I was afraid it would break the skylights in our home. Fortunately, no damage was done to the skylights. I haven’t been on the roof yet to see how the shingles look.

I had the privilege of speaking to the Iron Warriors Motorcycle Club’s National Meeting. The club consists of active and retired fire and police first responders. Needless to say, it was a very patriotic club. They love South Dakota and to the last person wish our governor was their governor in their respective states. I’m sure you’ve heard this from out-of-staters, “We absolutely love your Governor Kristi Noem.” The impact of what South Dakota did and has done during the Communist Chinese Covid crisis has been praised by the rest of the country. Gov. Noem, to out-of-staters, is bigger than life and that not only shows great credit to her, but also to all of us in South Dakota.

I can’t put a finger on it, with some of our state citizens. They still seem to delight and take cheap shots at her. So, let me ask you this: What previous governor put South Dakota on the map promoting our state better than Governor Noem? Nope, not even Governor Bill Janklow or Governor Joe Foss. If you remember, Joe Foss was a Medal of Honor winner as well as the American Football League’s Commissioner.

In the Bible it says, (Luke 4:24) No prophet is accepted in his hometown.” I guess to some degree this is true in her home state. This must be the case with Governor Noem.

Marcia and I also attended a fundraiser for Freedom’s Journey which is an organization dealing with sex trafficked women and children. This was of particular interest because in our district we had the FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints) compound southwest of Pringle. It’s really a relief knowing that it is closed for good. This compound trafficked children within itself. It forced children to be indentured servants and forced underaged girls into marriage to much older men, all with multiple wives (polygamy). It is still unnerving knowing that this is still happening in the United States, but it is gratifying to know it is not happening in South Dakota any longer.

If anyone sees any suspicious activity regarding sex trafficking, please report it to law enforcement. The Supervisory Special Agent who runs our state program is Special Agent Brent Gromer. His phone is 605-381-1734. I had a long discussion with Special Agent Gromer after the fundraiser and was very impressed with his passion and desire to prosecute sex crimes in our state.

Last, Representative Trish Ladner and I, with six other west river representatives and senators, met with three Rapid City Councilmen and discussed several issues. Work Force was a hot topic. I am on the state legislative summer study for Work Force Housing. What was a HUGE issue was WATER. Yep! The future of water in western South Dakota isn’t a pretty picture. One solution, it might be the only one, is to bring Missouri River water to the Black Hills with tap-ins along the way. This project is massive; installing a 6-foot diameter pipe 200 miles across western South Dakota.

Now here’s what makes it doable/possible. The Biden administration has all of the states drunk on Covid money. The problem with this funding is all the stipulations tagged on, stipulating where it can be spent. Well, this 200-mile, six-foot diameter pipeline fits the criteria. Yep! We could get $400 million this year with another $400 million in the next year or two. The cost of this massive project is $1 billion plus. That’s 1,000,000,000 dollars! I just wanted to throw that out there and will report back on progress/the likelihood of our state doing this.

I will be in Pierre again this week for the Marijuana Summer Study. Until next week…

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

The Week In Review

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 17:11:33 GMT

Whew! What a great week for America! I know the national news is depressing and getting more and more depressing all the time. It all reminds me of that old Hee Haw song, “Gloom, despair and agony on me.” Last week’s depressing item was having the Keystone XL Pipeline getting the final nail in the coffin. It is graveyard dead now.

Let’s forget about the news at the depressing national level. Heck, I don’t have the temperament to watch the national news anymore. With this 24/7 news cycle, people in our district want to visit with me about national news, and they look at me in shock and awe when I inform them that I don’t watch national news and that I’m a state representative. I then go on to explain that on the national level our representation is Senator John Thune, Senator Rounds and Congressman Johnson.

Speaking of them, and our great Governor Noem, let me say that I’m getting sick and tired of all the cheap shots they keep getting. Let’s review their performance, shall we?

Just this last week it was FINALIZED that Ellsworth AFB was going to be home to 2 squadrons of the new B21 Raider. The most state of the art bad ass airplane ever to be flown by our brave Air Force pilots. In review, the B21 Raider replaces the current B1 Bomber and the B2 Stealth. We at Ellsworth are getting 40 aircraft of only 100 being made. What do our governor and 3 congressional delegates have to do with this?

If you remember, it goes back to 2005 when Ellsworth was on the Base Realignment and Closure list. From that time Sen. Thune took point and went to work with the communities of Rapid City and Box Elder, the Ellsworth Authority and a lot of others to save the base. Simultaneously, then Gov. Rounds put the full backing of our state government on it. Sen. Tim Johnson and Congresswoman Herseth joined in and it was full court press to not only save Ellsworth, but to put Ellsworth in the position it is in today.

Probably their biggest accomplishment was to further develop the Powder River Training Complex, increasing it to its current size, which is 4 times larger. This training area covers eastern Montana and Wyoming as well as western North and South Dakota. In fact, it is the biggest training airspace in the continental United States. This gave us the edge needed to be in position to vie for the B21.

Congresswoman Noem came on board. Gov. Rounds became Sen. Rounds, Gov. Daugaard came into office and eventually Congressman Dusty Johnson. All of this delegation, along with the State Legislature and our community leaders, (especially in Rapid City and Box Elder), were lockstep in doing everything humanly possible to secure the coveted B21 Raider. Also noteworthy was that the School of Mines’ president Heather Wilson went on to be the Secretary of the United States Air Force. This turned out to be the perfect storm in a good way for South Dakota.

I cannot give enough praise to Sen. Thune, Sen. Rounds, Congressman Johnson, Gov. Noem and past Gov. Daugaard, Sen. Tim Johnson, and Congresswoman Herseth for accomplishing this amazing feat. Think about it. Little ole South Dakota is the envy of the entire nation. We are getting 40 B-21 Raider bombers that are nuclear rated. Yep! The B21 Raider has all of our enemies seriously shaking in their boots, providing a real deterrent to keepers of peace for our country. God bless the United States Air Force and God bless the USA!

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

South Dakota's First and Only State Veteran's Cemetary

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 16:41:45 GMT

Memorial Day Dedication Ceremony

Greetings! I wanted to report back to you about the dedication of South Dakota’s first and only state veterans’ cemetery. Yep, Marcia and I had the distinct honor and privilege to attend the dedication on Memorial Day.

How did this happen? What is the back story? Well, in our great state, we do have a national cemetery located next to I-90 just before arriving in Sturgis, going north from Rapid City. This cemetery is a pristine resting place with the sacred ground of our fallen heroes.

It is almost eerie to walk on the immaculate green grass dotted with the white, marble grave markers, all the same size and shape, all depicting the branch of service with each veteran’s name and rank. You see, amongst us veterans, rank is unimportant once we are discharged. We are all the same, brothers and sisters in arms, having all served our great nation. Thus, we all have the exact same white, marble gravestones.

The significance of an additional veterans’ cemetery is that now we have two final resting places for our veterans. This will slow down the fill of our national cemetery and give families of our east river veterans a much closer resting place.

How did we get fortunate enough to get another veterans’ cemetery? Well, we were one of the few states that didn’t have a state veterans’ cemetery, and this opportunity became available via the National Cemetery Commission. What is cool, or I should say patriotic, about accomplishing this is that we had the support of our governor, the legislature (via Senate bill 91), and our South Dakota Veterans Council. This group includes the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans, Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), Paralyzed Veterans of America, Vietnam Veterans of America, and The Military Order of Purple Hearts. Also, this would not have been possible without the city of Sioux Falls donating the 60 acres of land for the cemetery.

Senate bill 91 authorized the South Dakota Veterans Council to establish a State Veterans Cemetery Endowment Fund to help offset costs associated with the maintenance and upkeep of this state veterans’ cemetery. As per State Senator V.J. Smith of Brookings, “A vital part of the cemetery project is the endowment fund. When the fund reaches $3 million dollars, the interest and earnings will be used for maintenance of the grounds. Fundraising efforts are ongoing, and officials are very encouraged that the goal will be achieved very soon.”

Where is this new jewel located? The address is 25965 477th Ave, Sioux Falls, 57204. The phone number to call is 605-277-8094 and you can email to sdvc@state.sd.us .

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

IM-26

tgoodwin@gmail.com (Tim Goodwin) — Thu, 03 Jun 2021 16:29:51 GMT

Greetings! I hope everyone enjoyed the long Memorial Day weekend and that you had a moment or two at least to reflect on the ultimate sacrifice our brave warriors gave for this great country.

As Mark Levin would say, “Let’s talk marijuana, shall we?” LOL. I volunteered to be on the two big summer studies with the legislature, those being marijuana and work force housing. I was selected for both, but not upset as they are very important for this state going forward. The only other summer study I’ve been on (in the past) was hemp. That was two summers ago and I was able to follow that subject through to fruition, legalizing the growing and cultivation of hemp, in Legislative Session 2020.

I just attended the Marijuana Interim Study Committee’s first session. (Work Force Housing has its first session on June 9th.) This first marijuana session was conducted at our capitol and had the full committee meeting together. I say that as we have divided the marijuana issue into two subgroups. One is medicinal marijuana and the other is recreational marijuana. We are calling it “recreational, adult use”. I’m on the adult use subcommittee.

How did we get to this point in South Dakota? It started off with the November 3rd election in 2020. On that ballot were Constitutional Amendment A and Initiated Measure 26 (IM-26). Amendment A, as you remember, had three subjects: hemp, which had already passed and was put into law in 2020; recreational marijuana; and medicinal marijuana. On the same ballot was IM-26 which, again, was to legalize medicinal marijuana.

There was no mention that medicinal marijuana was already legal in a drug called Marinol. To obtain Marinol, you must have a South Dakota-licensed physician prescribe it, then a South Dakota-licensed pharmacist fill the prescription. This is a synthetic marijuana, so no income was gained by our growers. That was hidden pretty deeply in my opinion.

So, if you voted in the 2020 General Election, you could have voted for medical marijuana both in Constitutional Amendment A and again in IM-26. HOW IN THE HECK CAN IT BE ON THE BALLOT TWICE?? When I enquired about this even before the election, the Secretary of State pointed to the Attorney General who pointed to the Secretary of State. WHERE THE HECK IS THE QUALITY CONTROL ON BALLOT MEASURES?? We did pass legislation this past session (2021) to tighten up this issue. I know “the horse already left the barn”. Now, here we are holding the bag so to speak. The bag, not the “baggie”. LOL.

What I don’t like about ballot measures is that they take a lot of the quality control out of the process by eliminating the legislative process. Let me explain. If medicinal marijuana had been brought through the legislative process via any one of the 105 legislators (35 Senators and 70 House Representatives), it would have been drafted (written) by our lawyers in the Legislative Research Council, sent out for confirmation and tweaking, then put into an official bill. After that the legislator who is the Prime Sponsor would send it out to the other 104 legislators for co-sponsorship. Then it would go before a committee hearing, in this case, probably State Affairs. At the committee hearing, there would be proponent and opponent testimony and, if passed, it would then go to the floor for a vote by all the members of the prime sponsor’s body (Senate or House). If it passed that chamber, it would go over to the other chamber where it would be assigned to a committee, probably State Affairs again. There is would have proponent and opponent testimony again and if passed, be voted for or against on the floor of that chamber. If it received a majority vote, it would then go on to our Governor. He or she would sign it into law or veto it, sending it back to both chambers for a 2/3rds veto override. If it received the vote, then in this case it (medicinal marijuana) would become law in South Dakota.

Whew! I know I’m wearing you out. Me too! All of that process versus an Initiated Measure (such as IM-26), drawn up by a Special Interest Group, a lot of the time from out of state. Once the required number of signatures have been obtained, it appears on the ballot. Side note: Signature-getters are also paid and yes, most of that money comes from out of state special interest groups.

Before the election, the advertisement campaign begins. This is off my memory, so I might be off a bit, but proponents for IM-26 spent about $1.5 million and opponents (most of us grassroots South Dakotans) spent about $100 thousand to defeat IM-26. About a 15 to 1 ratio.

Also noteworthy, they made the ballot measure into tiny print for IM-26. It had 95 sections to it. To read this on the ballot, you’d have to drink a 5-hour energy drink, bring a box lunch, and have 20/15 vision. I’m being sarcastic but you get the point.

So, how did we get to this point? Amendment A passed by 54% in favor and is now waiting on the South Dakota Supreme Court to decide if it is constitutional, due to it having 3 subjects (Hemp, recreational, and medical marijuana). Initiated Measure 26 passed with 70% approval and goes into effect July 1st, 2021 with a 120-day window to get dispensaries set up by the finalized rules. That’s the mission of the Marijuana Interim Study Committee. Now you can see why I volunteered. WE HAVE TO GET THIS RIGHT!

To the citizens of South Dakota and to the men and women in uniform, in honor of all who served, in respectful memory of all who fell , and in great appreciation to those who serve today, Thank You, for giving me the opportunity to represent you.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Better Sit Down For This One ...

Wed, 26 May 2021 20:03:20 GMT

So you don't fall over!

Greetings! I hope you’re not standing when you read this because you’re going to fall over. Please take a moment and have a seat. Just when Governor Noem stopped the extra $300 per week for the unemployed, this happened! President Biden is going to send the parents of nearly every child under age 6 $300 per month; ages 6-18 $250 per month, both payments starting in July of 2021! Un-blankety blank-believable! I said “nearly” as there are some income restraints. If the parent is single, they need to make less than $75,000 per year; married less than $150,000 filing jointly. A married head of household $112,500 per year.

You meet these income guidelines and presto! Uncle Sugar Daddy is going to line your pockets with taxpayer money. And we’re so dead broke that we need to borrow it from communist China, with interest I might add! This is unbelievable and totally unsustainable, not to mention irresponsible! The tipping point is when more people in this country are on the take than those paying in. When this happens, we will no longer be a Constitutional Republic. All that goes with our constitution and our style of government will be gone forever.

WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR ALL OF THIS? This nation cannot keep going in the direction of massive debt. If you buy a new car and don’t pay the car payments, the bank takes it back. For the USA? If we don’t pay the debt and interest payments, no one will loan us money, or it will be at 25% interest rates. We will start the long slide into financial catastrophe. Look at Argentina. It used to be the finest Latin American country, even had nuclear power and energy. Now? It is truly a 3rd world bench marker because they borrowed, borrowed, and borrowed. It is mathematically impossible to pay back now, with a true depression economy for them.

A friend from Custer compared the Calvinist philosophy on self-sufficiency, responsibility and work ethic versus the Communist Karl Marx. In his Communist Manifesto of 1865, he preached “to each according to his needs -from each according to his abilities.” This basically states, “Tell me what you want, and the government will give it to you…give what you can and society will be satisfied.” Does America want to go down this path? It sure seems like we are racing down that path!

So, Tim, what happened to free up this manna from Biden? Well, it all is part of a $2 trillion Corona Virus Relief Package. This $300 for 6 and under and $250 for 6-18 year-olds is locked in until 2025. There is a movement to make it permanent under the American Families Plan. What the heck?

From the compassionate side, I’m sure this extra money per child will/would come in handy. I know it would have when I had kids at home, and I know it will help my grandkids’ families. The million dollar, I guess I should say trillion dollar, question is, “Are we going to go bankrupt dishing out all this ‘free money’?” If we had enough money in surplus in our treasury and our federal Congress approved this, and it was signed into law by our president, fine. But this is not the case.

To run this great country with executive orders that aren’t even constitutional is wrong, wrong, wrong! Like, “Remember the Alamo,” our new battle cry should be “Remember the Keystone XL Pipeline,” or “Remember the American Families Plan!” I can’t put into words how irresponsible and unamerican this is. Until next week, if we’re not speaking Chinese because we’re bankrupt…

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Back to my rant!

Thu, 20 May 2021 19:20:00 GMT

Paying people not to work!

Greetings! Things are picking up! Let me explain. I’m going back to my rant about paying people not to work. Here’s what was happening. If you applied and were receiving state unemployment, the federal government automatically gave you an additional $300 per week. So, say you were receiving the state maximum of $414, the feds gave you an additional $300 for a total compensation of $714 per week tax free! Yep! So, the person who works for $20 per hour takes home $800 gross for a 40-hour week while the person on unemployment gets $714 tax free. ??

Unbelievable! Oh, the $714 per week person has to apply for two jobs each week. Well, you know how that can go; they apply at a place that’s not hiring or there’s a wink wink nod nod and then it is another freeloader week of $714 clear.

In other words, the government, both state and federal, were in competition with the private sector regarding the unemployed. Of course, this is done using our tax dollars because government has no other money source other than what it takes from us.

I thought, Tim, you said things were picking up? Yes, I did, and they are. Our governor, Kristi Noem, has stepped in and is stopping the federal government $300 per week payments. Hallelujah! It’s about time! Speaking of our governor, through her leadership, South Dakota was the only state not to apply for the Federal Lost Wages Assistance Supplement and the state did not opt into the federal Mixed Earner Unemployment Compensation Program introduced in December of 2020. Also noteworthy, our lone congressman, Dusty Johnson, introduced the Get Americans Back to Work Plan, which proposes ending federal pandemic unemployment programs. Whoa whoa way to go Congressman Johnson!

Now onto my second point about closing South Dakota Job Services offices. I was wrong in suggesting this. Job Service is federally funded, not state funded. Closing them down would do nothing for the state budget and would cause undo hardship to the clientele Job Service is assisting. One example that hits home with me is that Job Service helps with our veterans who are having a difficult time. They help the ones with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) which a lot of our returning veterans are experiencing. Remember, we are still deployed overseas in these “forever wars” of 20 years and counting.

Also, a statistic that isn’t talked about enough are the 22 veterans who commit suicide each day. That number climbed to as high as 30 a day during the height of the COVID epidemic. Because of this, we need to keep Job Service open.

To recap, the government isn’t going to be as big a factor with the private sector as the $300 extra per week is coming to a halt. Yes, we need to keep Job Service open. My bad and I own up to it.

Now for the “Where is the outrage?” Communist China has landed a spacecraft on Mars. No, not the moon. On Mars! Where do you suppose they stole the technology to do that??! Where is the outrage?!

The Biden administration has notified Congress that it is sending $100 million U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Palestinians! So, Israel is getting slammed each day with rocket attacks and we’re giving big-time financial support to the Palestinians who harbor Hamas, the militant terrorist group responsible for these attacks!!?? WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?

The administration of the east coast pipeline (Colonial) that was shut down by a cyber attack has paid $5 million ransom to this group who are responsible for the attack. Yep! They paid it in crypto currency of 75 bitcoins which equals $5 million. (Boy! Did I miss out on that investment opportunity!) But my point is that by paying ransom, you only invite further frequent attacks. Where is the outrage?!

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Venting ...

Thu, 20 May 2021 19:18:13 GMT

Where is the Outrage?

Greetings! How are things going with everyone? I’m scared. Here are some of the reasons why.

Hunting and target shooting ammo shortages leave shelves still bare at all the sporting goods stores. Are we going to be able to have a pheasant hunting season? The season is scheduled now. Where do we purchase our shotgun shells? Where’s the outrage?

My 2016 pickup went over 200K miles, so we decided to shop around and buy a new one. Have you gone to new car lots lately? There is very little inventory. I did some checking and found out that there is a computer chip for a semi-conductor on new vehicles. This is particularly true for new pickups. They are rolling off the assembly lines but then lined up waiting for these computer chips. Digging a little deeper, to complicate this shortage, there was a fire in the plant in Renesas, Japan which is located northeast of Tokyo. This plant produces over 2/3 of all these chips. A mysterious fire, eh? Where is the outrage?

Next, I see the largest pipeline transport of oil/fuel had a cyberattack this past weekend disrupting operations. This pipeline went from Houston, TX to Linden, New Jersey. Experts say that will add another 10 cents a gallon to gas, which has already climbed over $1 a gallon since the November 2020 election. Where is the outrage?

Speaking of pipelines, our Keystone XL pipeline is still shut down by presidential executive order! Shovel-ready jobs, logistics setup, pipes prepositioned, man camps set up and then the project is stopped! Where is the outrage?

OH! We were energy independent; didn’t need to buy a drop of oil from any country, and now we’re starting to buy oil from Russia and Saudi Arabia??? Where is the outrage?

To add further insult to the injury of our economy, the forest service cuts back on logging permits. In our case, shutting down Hill City’s sawmill. Its last day is June 21, 2021. One hundred twenty jobs lost plus the loggers that went into the forest and harvested the timber. That’s another 100 jobs. So now, a 4x8 sheet of plywood is around $98. Where is the outrage?

I was talking with a builder who estimates that this adds another $25,000 in building material expenses to the average single-family home. Where is the outrage?

As long as I’m on a roll – venting – it irritated me that we subbed out our legal representation when we went before the South Dakota Supreme Court regarding whether Amendment A was constitutional. Yep, our Attorney General was AWOL (just my opinion) and we hired a Sioux Falls law firm to do his job. So, then we taxpayers pay for the law firm while our Attorney General and his squad of attorneys still collect their government checks. Where is the outrage?

I’m also scared because a Rapid City realtor told me that there are 29 homes for sale in Rapid City with 450 realtors. I don’t know if it is appropriate to say, “Where is the outrage?”, but I do remember 1980 when virtually every realtor went out of business because home loan interest rates were 17-20%. Now interest rates are at an all-time low and there are not enough homes for sale. Kind of scary to me at least.

I did propose in last week’s article the closing of Job Service. I feel the private sector could pick up this service at no cost to us taxpayers. I also mentioned we need to cut off all unemployment checks. WE NEED TO STOP PAYING PEOPLE NOT TO WORK!! I’m sticking to my guns; let the private sector pick up the Job Service mission at no cost to taxpayers and freeze all unemployment checks. Yepper! That’s my stance.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdslegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

WORK FORCE

Thu, 06 May 2021 17:27:35 GMT

and Unemployment

Since announcing last week that I am on the summer task force summer studies for both marijuana and work force housing, much has happened. Work force and housing for the workers is a monumental challenge for our state. That, coupled with increases in unemployment pay through Covid funds, has crippled business in getting enough workers to run their operation.

For the life of me, I can’t understand why there are unemployment offices when there are Help Wanted signs everywhere. We should close our unemployment offices. Chalk it up as a success of the times; thank the bureaucrats who have worked there. Give them dibs on any other state jobs that open up and actually decrease government !! Now that’s a novel idea. Wait a second. If the workers (I know I shouldn’t call them bureaucrats) who run the unemployment office can’t find a job, and that’s what they’ve been doing, what their entire existence has been (placing job candidates into jobs), well then there is not much hope for them, is there?

Seriously, let’s shut down our unemployment offices, as they are no longer needed, and while we are at it, let’s eliminate state unemployment, government unemployment benefits i.e. checks. Now we are getting someplace. If no one in our great state gets unemployment payments, I guess that would be incentive enough to go to work.

Sounds simple and it is. I repeat let’s shut down all unemployment offices in our state and stop all unemployment payments to those who are milking the system, thus forcing them to work or go hungry. Man! Tim, that’s kind of harsh, isn’t it? Yep. We live in harsh times. When just about every business is pleading for workers and have Help Wanted shingles posted, it is time to pull the trigger. No, this isn’t hyperbole. I’m serious! I’m prepared to introduce two bills this next Legislative Session: bill #1 eliminating the unemployment agency. I believe the official bureaucratic name is Job Service. Bill #2 eliminate all state unemployment checks.

In the mean time we need to tackle the work force housing issue. Any ideas or suggestions are more than welcome as I represent you on both the work force housing and marijuana summer studie s.

To the citizens of South Dakota and to the men and women in uniform, in honor of all who served, in respectful memory of all who fell, and in great appreciation to those who serve today, Thank you, for giving me the opportunity to represent you.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Listen Up!

tgoodwin@gmail.com (Tim Goodwin) — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 16:18:24 GMT

You Are Not Going to Believe This ...

Greetings! Listen up! You’re not going to believe this! I agree with President Biden! No, it is not about his executive overreach in shutting down the Keystone Pipeline. No, it is not about how he has the forest service cutting back on logging permits thus shutting down the Hill City sawmill. No, it is not even about overreaching his presidential power and stopping fireworks at Mount Rushmore on Independence Day. No, it is definitely not about borrowing another two trillion dollars from communist China for more stimulus money disguising it as infrastructure.

So, what could I possibly agree with President Biden about? It is ending these forever wars that the Bush administration started in 2001. Yep, we’ve been at war in Afghanistan and Iraq for 20 years this fall! You could have entered the military in 2001 and be retired this year. That’s how long this albatross on our nation has been going on!

President Biden has announced we’re pulling out the remaining 2500 troops from Afghanistan no later than September 11th, 2021!! Hallelujah and Amen!

If the Afghan military isn’t trained by now, it never will be trained and it shouldn’t be our (the United States) responsibility to be the world’s police force. Heck, the Russians, (then the Soviet Union), went to Afghanistan in the 1980’s and had what some call their Vietnam War losing over 27 thousand soldiers. Not to dive deep here, but we backed the opposition to Russia and supported Osama Bin-Laden in resistance to the Russian invasion. If you remember, we boycotted the 1980 Olympics because of this invasion.

A quick run-through about how we got there in the first place. After the terrorist attacks on our twin towers and the Pentagon, the Bush administration decided we needed to strike back at the leader of this terrorist group. Our intelligence had Bin-Laden pegged at being in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan. So, we invaded. We waited 40 days before we entered this region. So, the question arises about the world’s biggest terrorist, who just was responsible for killing more than 3 thousand Americans on U.S. soil, was given a 40-day head start to escape. We go to where our 40-day old intelligence thinks he is at and expect him to still be there.

How we occupied that country through the entire Bush, Obama and Trump administrations is mind boggling to most Americans. I would also point out that we spent seven trillion dollars in taxpayer monies. Also noteworthy is that during the Obama administration, they tracked down and killed the United States’ number one enemy Osama Bin-Laden. Why we have occupied that country this long is an absolute injustice to our brave military that were ordered to serve there and sometimes to die or be severely wounded.

Thank you President Biden for having the courage to stand up for our great military and say, “Enough is enough.”

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Groundbreaking Ceremony for the Liberty Center

Tue, 13 Apr 2021 19:54:29 GMT

In Box Elder

Greetings! One of the coolest things about being in the legislature is the impact you can make for your district and the state of South Dakota. On Friday, April 9th, we had the ground breaking ceremony for the Liberty Center located in Box Elder. So, what’s a Liberty Center? Well, it’s a gymnasium with a 1/8 mile indoor track, basketball courts, a weight room and all the trimmings.

It was requested by Ellsworth Air Force Base. The facility they’re using now is an old aircraft hangar. With the new B21 Raiders scheduled for Ellsworth, they are going to need to reclaim that hangar.

This is a $12.5 million expenditure. Funding is $6.3 by the Department of Defense, 3.2 by the State Legislature, 2 million by Pennington County, and the remainder by the South Dakota Ellsworth Development Authority .

Speaking of B21s, let’s re-cap the schedule to take place. Our air force base is scheduled to receive two squadrons of the most capable aircraft ever known to man. The B21 Raider will replace the B1B Lancer bomber that is currently in use at the base. So, we are going from one squadron of B-1Bs to two squadrons of B-21 Raiders.

What is a squadron? Being a retired Army guy, I will try to figure this out. In the Army, it goes from individual soldier, private, to squad to platoon to company to battalion to brigade to division to corps to an army. There can be several armies. Gen. Patton was Commander of the 3rd Army in WWII.

So, in the Air Force a squadron is parallel to an Army brigade commanded by a colonel. Now the equipment and mission are totally different of course.

The exciting part is that Ellsworth is getting a tactical fighting squadron of 20 each B21 Raiders and a training squadron with an additional 20 each B21 Raiders. The Air Force is only fielding 100 B21s initially. The training squadron mission is to train every airman who works on that airframe in their specialty. In the Army we call it MOS, Military Occupation Specialty.

The B21 Raider will replace the B1Bs and the B2 Stealth bombers. The B21 will also be nuclear capable.

So, to recap, little old South Dakota is getting two squadrons of the most mission capable aircraft anywhere in the world. Pretty amazing!

To think that in 2005 the base was on the schedule to be closed down! So, how in the world did Ellsworth and South Dakota pull off such an amazing feat? First off, after the scare of being almost shut down, our U.S. congressional delegation, along with the then Ellsworth authority, committed to obtain what is now called the Powder River Training Range. This encompasses western South and North Dakotas along with eastern Wyoming and Montana. This aircraft training range is the biggest in the entire United States.

Credit also goes to the then Congresswomen Stephanie Herseth and Kristi Noem, Senator John Thune, Senator Tim Johnson and, more recently Senator Rounds and Congressman Dusty Johnson. All of our congressional delegates from 2005 to the present have performed above and beyond what could be expected. Also, Gov. Daugaard and Gov. Noem, with our State Legislature, have been lockstep behind Ellsworth’s ability to obtain both of these squadrons. This is truly a success story of untold magnitude!

Back to the Liberty Center which is part of the 110 acre Liberty Plaza. This is located off base across from the golf course as you’re driving north onto the base. It will be on the east side of the road. Some might remember the brick Air Force housing addition that used to be there. This will be open to the public and is going to be managed by the YMCA. Hope to see you on the track in the near future!

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Veto Day

Tue, 06 Apr 2021 19:29:55 GMT

HB 1217 Style-and-Form changes

Greetings! We went back to Pierre for the traditional Veto Day designed to see if the Governor vetoed any bill that we passed during Session. There was one bill, HB-1217 which was to promote continued fairness in women’s sports.

It was sent back to us from the governor for style and form changes. It seemed like a smoke screen to me because the bill was drastically gutted and rewritten. This tactic didn’t fly with us House members. We voted on if we were going to accept this so-called style and form or send it back. We said “no” by a vote of 2-67. Next we had to determine that because it wasn’t style and form that we would consider it a veto.

After lots of discussions and meetings, we voted to override the veto. An override takes a 2/3rds vote of 47 out of 70 members in the House. We got 45 yeas, or were 2 short from an override. So, HB-1217 is dead.

The Governor did come out with two Executive Orders, one addressing boys in girl’s sports kindergarten through 12th grade, and another addressing men in women’s sports at the collegiate level. The problem with these Executive Orders is that they’re not law and there isn’t any teeth in them.

Backing up a bit, how in the world did we get in this predicament in the first place? Good question. Currently there are zero men/boys with sex changes participating in women/girls sports in the K through 12 or college ranks. Zero. There has only been one case of this happening in South Dakota. One. It is my understanding the high school athletic association denied this person participation as they felt it was an unfair advantage.

In Connecticut two sex-changed males to females broke most of their track and field records. So, were we legislating for a future problem? Probably. Was HB-1217 the right thing to do? I was co-sponsor of the bill, voted for it in State Affairs Committee where it passed 11-2. I again voted for it on the House floor where it passed 50-17 with 3 absent. It went to the Senate and passed 20-15. Like I already mentioned, the House’s attempt to override her veto came up two votes short, so the bill is dead.

I understand Governor Noem’s frustration with this bill, particularly with the NCAA threatening boycotting tournaments in South Dakota if it had passed. I also know Governor Noem is totally against sex-changed boys/men participating in women/girls sports. We are all in agreement here; we just differ on how to attack the possible future problem.

So, what’s next? It looks like a Special Session will be called to see if we all can get on the same page on this controversial subject. Also on the agenda in Special Session is fine-tuning medical marijuana which passed in the past election with 70% approval (IM-26).

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Veto Day!

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 17:54:55 GMT

A legislative day that is set aside approximately two weeks after session to discuss gubernatorial vetoes and bills.

We went in Monday, March 29th for what we call Veto Day, a legislative day that is set aside approximately two weeks after session to discuss gubernatorial vetoes and bills that were not signed into law. This year looks like not only will we have Veto Day, but also a Special Session will be called the day after Veto Day. I’ll dive into all the happenings there in next week’s article.

What I’d like to discuss this week is the catastrophic news of the Hill City sawmill being shut down!! After 53 years of operation, Nieman Enterprises, Inc. is going to be forced to close the sawmill. This sawmill directly employed 120 employees and 12 contract crews who worked in the forest. This on the heels of the Keystone XL Pipeline being shut down by presidential executive order.

The Keystone pipeline was totally ready to go or what President Obama talked about, “shovel ready jobs”. This pipeline was shovel ready. That, coupled with the cancellation of fireworks at our Shrine of Democracy, that being Mount Rushmore, on July 4th, Independence Day, is almost unbelievable. Is this a bad dream? I wish it was and we could just wake up!

Another thing that has happened since our newest president’s inauguration is the price of fuel. Both gas and diesel fuel have gone up over $1.00 per gallon with no relief in sight. In fact, the prediction is a $2.00 hike or $4.00 per gallon gas by summertime. This will directly hit our tourist economy as we have tourists travel very long distances to come to the Black Hills. This isn’t about politics, it’s about a new president who deliberately is gutting our economy in South Dakota and in particular the Black Hills.

Mr. President, your talk of unity and good-paying jobs, taking care of families is pure fiction. If you truly mean that Mr. President, remove your executive order and restore the completion of the Keystone pipeline. Order the Federal Forest Service to continue logging in our forest with renewed management practices. Finally, Mr. President, authorize fireworks at Mount Rushmore. Bring the first lady and attend the greatest Declaration of Independence Day celebration in our nation. It’s not too late to turn things around Mr. President. Just quit listening to your horse-holders and do what’s right for our great nation.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com

Catching up on the 96th Legislative Session

tgoodwin@gmail.com (Tim Goodwin) — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 19:14:53 GMT

Greetings! In this week’s article, I will try to catch up and further inform on the 96th Legislative Session. To start off with we had retirements in two key cabinet positions.

Darin Bergquist retired as our Secretary of Transportations and has been replaced by Joel Jundt who was Deputy Secretary. Both men were remarkable on running this huge department. Best of luck Darin in retirement and thank you Joel for taking responsibility for the role as Secretary of Transportation.

The other retirement was with Secretary of Game, Fish and Parks where Kelly Hepler held the top spot the last 6 years. Kelly, you also did an outstanding job running our GF&P and I also wish you the best in retirement. Give me a call and let’s go fishing. Replacing Kelly is Kevin Robling. Kevin has a Bachelor and a Master degree from SDSU (Go Jacks!) in wildlife and fisheries science. He has been with the department the past 10 years. Kevin the offer is still on the table to go lion hunting. I know both of these gentlemen well and applaud Governor Noem’s selections for our two newest cabinet secretaries.

Now back to session! A couple of alibis please for leaving out bills regarding expenditures last week. We passed Senate bill 144 which authorizes a crisis stabilization unit. The cost is $4.6 million and the location is in Rapid City. This is desperately needed not only on the patient level but on the support level as well.

What is happening is if the sheriff’s office gets a call regarding someone having a mental illness issue, the closest facility is in Yankton, South Dakota. The state did provide sheriff’s departments with laptops that hooked directly to counselors 24 hours a day. If this didn’t work or the situation worsened, the patients needed to be transported from the Black Hills to Yankton. Pennington County sometimes bussed patients in conjunction with penitentiary prisoners. Most of the time the sheriff’s departments had to drive patients to Yankton only to have to retrieve them 3 or 4 days later. This facility will make a big difference.

Also passed was HB-1265 to improve radio systems mainly in the Black Hills. There are times where no communication is available, making first responders’ jobs much more difficult and dangerous. Hopefully this will eliminate that problem.

We passed HB-1110 making it illegal to have an abortion if the parent(s) found out the baby was diagnosed with Down Syndrome.

We defended property rights by stopping Game Wardens from coming onto your property without a search warrant; bill HB-1111.

We empowered parental rights by passing SB-177 regarding home schooling. This was hotly contested. I voted in favor as I looked at it as a freedom bill where if parents want to home school their children, they should have the right to do so. In our district the superintendents already were allowing home school kids to participate in extracurriculars. This looked to me as an I-90 – I-29 corridor bill where the Sioux Falls schools and smaller schools surrounding Sioux Falls were squabbling. Perhaps Rapid City as well. We’re very lucky to have the high-quality K-12 schools in our district. This is a credit to our teachers, administrators and parents.

Hemp. We passed hemp last session, meaning the 95th session, not this year’s 96th session. The rollout has taken time. We did amend last year’s bill allowing greenhouses to grow hemp plants. This wasn’t included in last year’s bill. We made the size of the greenhouse 2800 square feet or larger. A 30x90 greenhouse is 2700 square feet. This prohibits backyard sheds from declaring themselves as a greenhouse.

Lastly, medicinal marijuana. Whew! Like I’ve stated before medicinal marijuana was on the ballot in Constitutional Amendment A wrapped with hemp and recreational marijuana. This is before our state supreme court now waiting for a ruling as to whether or not it was constitutional.

Initiated Measure 26 (IM26) was stand-alone requiring a yes or not vote regarding legalization of medicinal marijuana. This passed by the voters by a 70% yes vote. Voters of South Dakota want medicinal marijuana. The Department of Health and Department of Revenue asked for an additional year to implement IM26. We worked with both of these agencies and did come up with a compromise for a 6-month extension, not a full year. However, when HB-1100 went over to the Senate, a section was added to legalize recreational marijuana as well. So, the long and the short of it is that we went back to what the people originally voted for in IM26. The start date is our state’s fiscal new year which is July 1st, 2021. There is a 120-day window for businesses to get set up with cards authorizing medicinal marijuana which would take it to Nov. 1, 2021.-

This is a good time to stop! More next week.

Tim R. Goodwin, District 30 Representative

Tim.goodwin@sdlegislature.gov

Tgoodwin1955@gmail.com